Here’s a very interesting article by Robert Picard on how little value journalists actually create.
Some who bemoan the coming bankruptcy of the newspaper industry claim that journalists provide an invaluable service in uncovering corruption and acting as watchdog of public officials for the public.
If that was ever true, it hasn’t been true for a long time. Investigative reporting on anything that actually matters is a microscopic part of what newspapers and journalists do, and as the article notes, most journalists spend their time producing material that offers extremely little that can’t be found in many other places for free. (Also note Picard’s nice use of the subjective theory of value.)
Although he didn’t, Picard could have included a note on how the management is just as hopeless on this as is the rank-and-file reporter. Dean Singleton is probably the poster boy for aging, out-of-touch newspaper executives who think that the key to newspaper success is to simply start charging readers to read online content. Singleton wants to charge for the the same, valueless content that Picard describes, but Singleton thinks people are just dying to read it.
Indeed, Singleton (who is on the Associated Press Board of Directors) recently went on a rant against Google for being too efficient a news aggregator (that’s the newspaper’s job!), and said he was going to make sure that the freeloading public will pay, pay, pay.
The whole affair only displays Singleton’s deep, deep ignorance of how content is used on the internet, and Picard’s look at just how mundane, standardized, and interchangable most news content has become, really illustrates just how impossible it will be for Singleton to control the content he thinks he can keep safe and sound behind a wall.
[Clay Shirky has also provided a nice examination of why news content cannot be contained behind pay walls]
Amazingly, Singleton has also announced that the Denver Post will now demand payment to view its online stories. This won’t make the Post profitable, but it will ensure that the Post becomes irrelevant to the educated public.
{ 19 comments }
That could change if . . .
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Forbes.com Commentary: Audit The Fed!
So we have the printed news outlets struggling to appear relevant whereas they essentially have two options to choose from that are critical to their existence: pump out the lies and half-truths of the unConstitutional coup OR SATISFY INQUISITIVE MINDS BY PROVIDING THE TRUTHFUL AND LOGICAL WISDOM THAT IS BASED ON THE PRINCIPLES OF CLASSICAL LIBERALISM.
Will the media outlets be foolish like the addicts of counterfeit money (the fascist corporations that have gone to bed with the socialist government) and be lead like a hapless puppy down the path of destruction OR WILL THEY AWAKEN TO THE CONCEPT OF ‘FREEDOM OF THE PRESS’ AND ACTUALLY EXPOSE THE FALLACIES OF THE ECONOMIC TERRORISTS THAT COMPOSE THE INNER CIRCLE OF THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL COUP?
If the printed media or any of the other types of media outlets go broke they have no one to blame except themselves (that is, each CEO that has been corrupted and bribed by the ego-driven interventionists).
It is time for the big, corrupt news media outlets to be broken apart by the equilibrium power of the market so that those who are entrepreneurial can provide relevant and truthful news to the people. Let knowledge flow and quickly the usurpers of the Constitution and the ego-driven interventionists and the ego-driven interpeters will be reviled and shunned and sent to their abasement.
This is a very carefully constructed blog post. Mr. McMaken’s critique of journalism is entirely outcome-determinative, and thus this post only criticizes the business model. When truly private journalists like Steve Sailer engage in real critical inquiry, McMaken does not hesitate to savage them.
I savage Sailer because he’s a creepy white supremacist with questionable theories. But, I can’t really figure out what that has to do with my post here.
Hey Ryan. Register on Blogger and post on iSteve so you can savage all his questionable theories point by point. I bet you won’t go near there for fear of having your intellectual cojones handed to you.
Point being, folks like Sailer and Raimondo are exactly what journalists should be, and they are conspicuously absent from your analysis. In fact, when oligarchs like Carlos Slim are no longer around to pay the New York Times to tell us that equality of inputs yields equality of outcomes, I’m betting you’re going to weep great tears into your Starbucks.
im in australia at the mo.every story ive read about home prices has been done by bankers or real estate agents.one lately by an estate agent showed how much home prices have gone up in 20 years and how the recent 4% drop means its a good time to buy.theres one realy good show late at night in aus called media watch which goes over media stories over the week and one by one shows the media lack of insite biased views and journalists simply copying stories and putting there name on it or ect.ive stoped watching the news
Mainstream Journalists work is to distort reality, and provide a road for the government to undertake horrific policies. In other words they lie, and deceive the people, on behalf of special interest groups ( primary the Israeli Lobby ) and the government. They are a treacherous bunch, who cheaply sell their soul to the devil just for a monthly pay.
The “free market media” on the other hand, blogs etc, provide far better information, and in many cases, many make more money, than mainstream journalists, based on the content and quality they provide.
Mainstream Journalists work is to distort reality, and provide a road for the government to undertake horrific policies. In other words they lie, and deceive the people, on behalf of special interest groups ( primarily the Israeli Lobby ) and the government. They are a treacherous bunch, who cheaply sell their soul to the devil just for a monthly pay.
The “free market media” on the other hand, blogs etc, provide far better information, and in many cases, many make more money, than mainstream journalists, based on the content and quality they provide.
Once upon a time the newspapers provided useful services for those who produced raw materials and created new wealth. But those were local newspapers in touch with productive communities that were not beyond calling politicians and corporations to task.
Now the newspapers only provide services for those who have impoverished raw materials producers. The local newspapers have long been driven from the scene replaced by print conduits for government propaganda and corporate press releases.
The same parasites who plundered the wealth of the nation have turned on the newspapers which now experience poetic justice. I suppose the moral here is if you go to bed with with a psychopath expect a knife in the back.
Yeah, I have only read the local rags online for the last few years, but lately, I have been busier and have realized that they provide no value whatsoever. I do not miss reading them in the slightest, since it seems good local bloggers usually beat the newspaper to the scoop (if only because the newspaper is “holding” a story).
This neither this article nor the referenced one addresses another source of value for media outlets: integrity, and reliability. It used to be that the news would not publish stories without sources, or cross checking facts, leading them to produce stories that were more likely to be true.
However, recently the requirement to “break news first” has removed all needs to question the sources or double check facts. There is still the question of how reliable and factual a website is, when operated by an unknown person. However, newspapers have put themselves in the same position when time after time they’ve published stories based on sensationalism, and not integrity.
And it wrong to debate how much CEOs get paid? How exactly? So, newspapers are slowly but surely going to go belly-up as soon as those who get their news on-line outnumber those who get their news in the newspapers. Everyone knows that newspapers make their money from selling ad space. So as soon as businesses realise it’s better to advertise on-line instead of newspapers then it all over. The problem of whether newspapers try to go to government and argue they need to be subsidised because they provide a ‘unique valuable service’ that no one else can provide is something else.
Much of what is in the newspapers is just rewritten press releases put out by government, business, academia, or various advocacy groups. With the internet many of those groups can just put their own press releases out directly to the public. This has the advantage that those groups can say exactly what they want without filtering while the public is getting information which they know is from the point of view of those groups and is not pretending to be “independentâ€.
The newspapers got a premium in money because they owned the expensive presses and distribution networks which allowed them to be gatekeepers of information. With the internet that gatekeeper function has been greatly reduced along with the money they can charge. The newspapers still have name recognition, access to sources, and experienced reporters but these are legacy assets which will fade if they don’t provide the public with what the public wants.
Part of the fading of newspapers legacy assets will be the availability of more and more raw and processed information on the internet which will mean that anyone can get access to information that previously only could be accessed with the right connections. Whether or not the newspapers and other present media can turn their present positions of exclusive information providers based on ownership of large presses or transmitting towers into a new system of providing information in a form people want in an information flooded world is up to them. They still have the lead but they need to realize that they have lost a lot of their gatekeeper status and with that loss they can’t live off their old gatekeeper premium for long
Swinton properly described journalists as “intellectual prostitutes”. They have been instrumental to the powered elites for a very long time as indispensable tools for disseminating the national meme. There are laws which grant favored status to most businesses in the country, therefore I think it natural to assume that more of those types of laws will be passed in short order to protect journalistic endeavors from the blogging community.
Byzantine:
You speak heap big truth about Ryan and Sailer.
Quite sad, inasmuch as Mises has been savaged by the $PLC (or does the $ offend you, RM). Ryan is the Mark Potok of LRC. Calling a Dodger and Laker fan Angeleno like Steve a “Creepy white supremacist” is an utter joke. After all, what does Sailer do but write truthfully about race? He may be the only person in Amerika who is doing so right now. Apparently, for Ryan, having even one person write truthfully about race is unspeakable. The political correctness boggles the mind. It would be sad to think that all Mises writers signed on to this kind of nonsense. DiLorenzo clearly doesn’t. But then, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen Gail Jarvis and Steven Yates on LRC
Sailer’s latest contribution today on takimag.com is, as usual, brilliant, and gets to the heart of some very interesting truths that elude people like RM who apparently want nary a negative word spokes about affirmative action and quotas.
Sailer’s biography of Obama was, needless to say, monumental, and I think in future years it will be an important reference work. By then, Ryan will be suggesting many of us (most of whom worked hard hours on behalf of Ron Paul) are good candidates for the FEMA camps, agreed?
Questions, comments?
Steve Sailer is one of the most insightful and articulate voices on the web. Referring to him as a ‘White Supremacist’ is way out of line.
I guess you can tell Sailer is a white supremacist by the way he writes about superior East Asian and Jewish IQ.
Sailer can be prejudicial but he does make some good points. He doesnt support any kind of nude negro law, so I would call him a white supremacist. On the other hand he has made some questionable comments.
Well, Ryan is half Hispanic. Steve and VDARE stand in the way of Aztlán. Put two and two together. By the way, stereotypes are never true.
I am a journalism student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and I find all of this to be horribly inaccurate. Journalists provide a service that the general public is not interested in doing. We get paid to do the research and compile all of the information into articles so that the public does not need to waste their time looking for anything. Also, maybe it is true that some journalists are unethical these days, but our school shoves ethics down our throats in every class. So maybe give journalism a couple years…I feel that the media will be making a huge change soon as younger people make their way into the career field.
Comments on this entry are closed.