American journalism--how to fix it?

[Naked Gents Rut]

You might like Greenwald. His focus is excessively legalistic, resulting in the average Greenwald post being just like your most lawyery Poly posts, only ten times longer.

[chequita guevara]

He's a constitutional lawyer, so yeah, his blogs might seem lawyerly. Also, his posts are long because he piles on the evidence (he does do short posts sometimes). If he didn't, folks like you and DD would run around crying, "Where's the beef?" and claiming he didn't have enough evidence to prove his case. Frankly, his posting style is a response to partisans like you who've been demanding overwhelming evidence to prove a case. Good for him. His posts are generally unassailable.

[Naked Gents Rut]

His posts are generally unassailable.

As well as interminable.

[Darius871]

You might like Greenwald. His focus is excessively legalistic, resulting in the average Greenwald post being just like your most lawyery Poly posts, only ten times longer.

I f***ing HATE lawyers

[Naked Gents Rut]

I guess you'd hate Greenwald too, then.

[Zkribbler]

I f***ing HATE lawyers

[Zkribbler]

...How do we convince the American public at-large, not exactly known for their rigourous intellectualism, to recognize the important of true journalism?

I find myself more and more watching BBC America.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Maybe news shouldn't be profitable. I don't think newspapers can be saved, but as for television, simply require media companies to provide news, for free, as part of the cost of using public airwaves. They'd be required to spend a certain amount, and the news division would be independent from editorial control by the parent corporation.

So much for broadcast, what about things like cable, especially 24/7 news channels? Dunno.

That's actually how things were, more or less, before the FCC was gutted under Reagan. The problem now is that, while we were able to exercise government control over the airways in the age of analogue broadcasting (because the airwaves were a relatively scarce commodity and the government could claim stewardship of them in the public interest), that rationale falls away as broadcasting goes digital.

[Darius871]

It's OK to be a self-loathing lawyer. How else could our profession get by?

[Ben Kenobi]

You want to fix journalism?

1. Erase the distinction between "print journalism/online journalism". Any successful paper should see that they should have both distribution methods these days. Let the online version run the paper version (ie, print online first, then paper the next morning). Paper only papers are going to go the way of the dinosaur.

2. Journalism as "making a difference" to Journalism as "testimony of evidence". Journalism has to get rid the garbage that the primary role of Journalism is to make a difference. The primary role should be the testimony of evidence, who what where when why and how.

3. Throw out the newswires. People can get the newswires online, which spells doom for any paper which uses news wires for content. Instead, fill up on the local content, the things which will escape their notice and attention. Get reporters out there. If I'm online and I can find the news more quickly and news that is more interest then the local paper, why should I buy the local paper?

4. Journalism as cheeleaders. Please. Just the facts, I don't want to see Obama plastered on the paper for week after week for chrissakes, and see MORE coverage of Obama then of our prime minister here. We all know there wouldn't be this kind of coverage for McCain, and it trashes your objectivity. I don't want the local paper to be the local distributor of Pravda.

5. No journalism bailouts. It's essential that the press remain independent of the government, for the obvious reason that whomever pays the piper plays the tune. I don't believe that print newspapers can be entirely supplanted by online ones, explicitly because the online ones don't stay put. They can change and links die, which make them particularly useless for research and archival purposes.

[Kidlicious]

It's OK to be a self-loathing lawyer. How else would the profession get by?

It's ok to do it for the too. That's why I've done every job that I've ever done.

[chequita guevara]

As usual, BK demonstrates his total ignorance of whatever given subject he's attempting to discuss.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Maybe news shouldn't be profitable. I don't think newspapers can be saved, but as for television, simply require media companies to provide news, for free, as part of the cost of using public airwaves. They'd be required to spend a certain amount, and the news division would be independent from editorial control by the parent corporation.

So much for broadcast, what about things like cable, especially 24/7 news channels? Dunno.

Well, you'd also have to mandate that it'd be a half hour (at least) sans commercial news broadcast, to prevent chasing the ratings.

Cable news would (and should, since they aren't using the public airwaves) be free of that requirement.

[Ben Kenobi]

As usual, BK demonstrates his total ignorance of whatever given subject he's attempting to discuss.

That's a pretty weak reply Che. If you've got a point, you should say what you really feel.

[chequita guevara]

What's the point? Facts and logic never make a difference to you. I mean, take point 1. Nearly every paper provides a web version of the paper . . . for free!