I saw that Russell Crowe Movie "State of Play" tonight. It was about a real, hard-boiled reporter working an intricate story for a dying newspaper. Crowe's character even had to deal with a young blogger working for the paper. He asked her, when the story they were both working on was about to break, why she wasn't off blogging it. She said to him, this story was meant to be in newsprint. In other words, too good to be blogged.The movie made me sad.
There are too many reporters out of work and 5 that I know have turned to blogging. It is not the answer for them if they want to make money. And bloggers don't have the resources to do in-depth research, nor do they have the time, especially when they have to write every day. Blogging wastes the talent of news reporters. Also, readers are fickle. They will leave your blog, just like they left your newspaper. The news business sucks and the brilliant reporters I know out of work proves it.
9 comments:
Hey, I saw that movie last night too. The political intrigue was remarkable with plot twists and surprise revelations. It made me wonder how much more goes on behind the scenes while government is being "done to us"? Do we really know?
For example, why is our governor touting $1.1 billion from the Seminole Tribe for our budget bail out? Could it be that our talentless State Legislature would prefer to let public school education flounder more than raise the necessary taxes needed to fund schools adequately?
I digress. It was an inspiring movie and if you like intrigue and complex plot development, you might enjoy it too.
If you concerned about the health of newspapers, I suggest you and Alan stop cutting and pasting entire articles out of newspaper web sites, thus depriving the newspapers of ad revenue, however meager it is.
You are now, after some prodding, making sure to link to the original articles, but that is not very helpful when you also paste the entire article in your post.
I know you guys are not profiting from the material, but it is still bad form.
Newspapers have report on issues without pissing off their advertisers.
Sad to see the writers go, but the newspapers have some serious conflict of interest problems. I stopped buying the Herald when they pushed the line too far.
I almost always, do a quote and a link.... i.e. look at my Coral Gables post yesterday. Stop generalizing. I am respectful of my sources always.
Since my family is already suffering from the recent decline of the newspaper and will more than likely suffer even more if things don't turn around for the industry, this subject strikes close to home
By not charging for online content from the outset, newspapers actually started digging their own graves. Who wants to pay for what you can get for free?
I've worked for several newspapers and pissing off the advertisers was never a litmus test for anyone's work.
What will happen is that existing newspapers will finally fail and the ones who have managed to hang on , in the end, will all start charging for the online content that we have become addicted to.
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The problem with newspapers is that they've become press release aggregaters or simply lying rags.
For many years growing up, I admired the Herald. That is, until I got behind the scenes (at least re: Miami-Dade County Public Schools). I would see events as they happened, I would see private documents, and then I would see the articles in the Herald and wonder why any one would read that crap. The Herald is just a goldmine of misinformation, and no, it's not worth paying for.
Everybody's doing badly, there's millions of people out of jobs, and unfortunately if reporters don't step it up, they'll follow in line. I'd love nothing more than a good investigative paper. Hell, if Miami had one, I truly would subscribe to it. But to pay so I can be spoonfed lies and press releases I can catch online (not on the Herald site) for free? No thanks, they deserve what they get.
Miami Herald reporters and other Miami reporters have missed many public corruption stories over the last ten years.
What gets me is this blog has hundreds of dead links to the Herald...they take the stories off after 7 days. That doesn't concern the reporters, that our blogs, which we offer forever as a service, make no sense without the link.
2nd Anonymous:
Bad form is reporters who think they are bloggers.
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