Written By:
all_your_base - Date published:
4:34 pm, June 18th, 2009 - 19 comments
Categories: interweb -
Tags: papers, stuff.co.nz
Taken just now from the front page of Stuff.co.nz:
Here’s something a little more substantial you might enjoy.
I don’t think I could continue in my job as editor if I had to put my name to this pap.
Obligatory: “they’re just resting”.
L
Nice how biggest US financial reforms makes last place… class
Don’t hold your breath bobo. In all likelyhood it’s about to get knocked off the bottom by this breaking story:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/oddstuff/2512559/Chinas-one-pooch-policy
bugger 🙂 Does that mean more flushed pooches ?
Outragous! They’ve knocked off the real story of the day, which was on the editor’s pick list a few hours ago: “Sex-starved emu seeks mate”
… now that’s journalism!
Oh the valiant guardians of democracy that are our mighty 4th Estate.
Hey, don’t be so harsh. They are a business need I add more?
And just how is Stuff a newspaper?
Because its a Fairfax run amalgamation of their main papers.
Mark Twain; Pat Booth….they might have an opinion!
In this on the day the trade minister is in Apia negotiating an important free trade agreement with Pacific states. Nothing on 3 News about that today either.
Captha: Mr Talmuds
The proliferation of high powered smart phones/pda’s and mobile broadband will further decimate the print news media.
They MSM have to start worrying when they are pilfering stories off blog sites! Still it must be a real bastard being accountable for the things you publish. How many blogs would survive under those conditions?
Even more tragic than the “Editor’s Picks” is often the “Most Popular” listing. Perhaps the media is just serving up what the punters want?
BLiP,
Perhaps the media is just serving up what the punters want?
No shit. It’s a market. Easier to follow a market than lead it. More profitable if you can lead it, but devilishly hard to do.
If you want better-quality content, and better choiced, demand it.
L
The previous editor of the Dom Post, Tim Pankhurst, was once quoted as saying producing a daily newspaper was like being in show business. He never denied having said it.
It explains a lot about the newspaper under his watch: the smartarse headlines, the blurring of factual reporting and comment and the paper’s superficial approach.
I had a vague hope that under a new editor the DP might improve. No sign so far.
Seriously though, anyone got any ideas about where this is heading? The papers being “agnostic as to platform” (as per the NYT editor) ain’t going to save them if the advertising revenue’s going elsewhere. Internet advertising isn’t yet adequate to (and may not ever?) cover the shortfall. Subscriptions aren’t likely to work when people can get content elsewhere for free.
Of course it’s really less about saving papers and more about saving journalism.
Maybe if you’re Amazon or Google or Apple you start with the device or platform (Kindle/Android/iPhone) that the content will eventually be delivered to to help you secure the channel? Apple showed it could work with music, maybe the same approach for news?
Ex-Herald editor Gavin Ellis is doing a PhD on it at Auckland, he might know.
Don’t be silly — those weren’t headlines on the front pages of Fairfax papers. Stuff is an entirely different beast, more angled towards sex and celebrity. The daily papers are more serious than the website, which kind of disproves your point: the list above could more easily be used to argue that newspapers are dying because readers don’t want serious, quality information.