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- Who will pay for serious journalism? Well, newspapers canToday
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I’m getting increasingly frustrated at the who-will-pay-for-the-quality-journalism debate.
Why?
Because I don’t think that what’s really being debated in a lot of cases. And because I think there is an unwillingness to accept that the who-will-pay argument means newspapers are going to have to change.
What some are really arguing, it seems to me, is “Who is going to provide us the money to allow us to keep doing what we’re doing now?”
The question some of them are not asking is, “What do we have to do to ensure that we are preserving the quality journalism?” We, the newspapers. Not Google. Not government. Not some mythical foundation.
Listen.
I strongly believe in the power of journalism and the importance of it. Without serious journalism, coverage of the community talking to itself, the revelation of that which is hidden (either accidently or on purpose), the digging deep into issues that affect us all and much more would be lost and we would be much the weaker and poorer for it.
But the who-will-pay argument ignores the fact that serious journalism is only part of what newspapers currently do. My local daily has, among others, sections on fashion, food, homes and cars (where nary a discouraging word is written), and more.
I understand the need for those, to continue to serve the (aging and decreasing number of) readers and support the (decreasing amount of) advertising. I’ve even been known to cli
- Tuesday squibsYesterday
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The world of media is endlessly fascinating, as these posts show:
- Advice on how to land a job in journalism. Alfred Hermida offers some sound advice, from a couple of sources, on how graduating journalism students can make the best of a bad situation. Related: Student journalist of the year: “Journalistically, I wouldn’t really say I’m surviving“, the post that Alfred riffed on.
- What is…? A handy guide for the new media novice. Not sure how I missed this earlier, but Mark Luckie’s downloadable PDF guide to the new media buzzwords is yet another great gift from Mark. (Note: you have to sign up — free of charge — with Scribd to get the download.)
- Thirst in the Mojave. I pointed to the great Las Vegas Sun feature on water and Las Vegas, which combines video, geotagging, innovative depth material and more, a day or two ago. This post gives some of the details of how the project came together. Related: Alex Gamela has some of the details and words of praise for the project.
- Monday morning squibsJanuary 5
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Some items to get the week started:
- I am the Future of Journalism contest. Publish2’s contest (deadline was end of December) has produced some wonderful entries from smart young journalists. I haven’t seem them all, but I’m working on it.
- Star series shines light on government travel spending. How the Toronto Star used website scraping, databases and good, old-fashioned curiosity to dig deep into Canadian government spending. Related: Deep Throat Meets Data Mining, which is a deepish look at “computational reporting.”
- Lee Enterprises: A poster child for the ownership crisis. You should read Steve Yelvington’s post for a couple of reasons. One is that it’s a nice, crisp look at why newspaper companies are in such serious financial trouble. Another is that reminds use newspapers still make scads of money.
- Hyperlocal Websites will Boom in 2009 as Community Newspapers Fold. I’m not sure I agree with the premise that scads of community newspapers will fold and be replaced by websites this year. Interesting piece, nonetheless.
- Friday squibsJanuary 2
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I have collected far too many links for a single post, so I may spread them out over the weekend.
- The Rise of Cloud Agents. A whole new concept to get my mind around: software to help deal with the massive amounts of data around us. Some implications for media here, although I’m not yet sure how extensive they may be.
- More than photos: The changing role of photojournalists in Canada. A piece at the NPAC*APPC website that includes this quote from the photo editor of the Globe & Mail: “There will never be another still-only photographer job in Canada anywhere.” No response to the piece in the site’s forum yet, but I’m sure some is coming.
- Lots left to learn after a year of learning. A very nice piece from Steve Buttry on what he learned this year and why he’s no closer to his younger self’s idea that one day he would move from learning to knowing.
- A look back at 2008. A huge list of Mac resources at UsingMac.com.
- Forget Survival: The Journalist’s Guide to Owning 2009 and Beyond. A good, much-pointed-to piece at New Media Bytes. Lot
- Students firstJanuary 2
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A note: One of my students who’s is on Twitter (@sarahsodyssey) was responsible for me finding Suzanna Yada’s Resolutions for journalism students, part I: Become invaluable, the essential post I mentioned earlier today.
That’s a Twitter first for me: my students are starting to beat me to the good stuff.
Now I know what a proud dad feels like.
