Seriously tho, I think everyone needs to seriously get a grip about the “demise” of newsprint as a medium and worry about more pressing issues huh?

http://tinyurl.com/qo2all

For an good example of non-traditional-media news gathering and beat reporting, we in Minnesota have The Uptake, whose comprehensive video coverage of the Franken-Coleman recount and trial was the main reason Coleman could not allege recount fraud. It was all on tape. All the rest of the media reported was sound-bites and decisions.

I raised my hand and told him that I had a copy of his paper right here and the leading item was last nights lottery numbers so I thought he might be overstating his importance to society.

Technically speaking I’d say the reporting is done with a bias against police tactics and a certain authoritarian government mindset. Not against Government and Police.

John A states: “…But I would (indeed, as noted by an earlier commentor, indirectly do in buying access to the Web)…”

This actuallly doesn’t seem quite right to me. I don’t want to see the NYTimes starting to recieve a share of the money I spend for Internet Connectivity. Leading down this road seems like it would either raise my rates substantially or screw up net neutrality. On the other hand I wouldn’t be adverse to paying reasonable rates directly to the NYTimes for online access, but the content has to fit the media. I probably wouldn’t pay for reprints of their print stories. With the internet the possibilites are so much greater than that. Something more interactive though and ad free would be interesting. Even the simple embedded linking to sources is something that adds a lot of value for little effort. I’d be willing to pay if they uploaded thier full data/interview notes as well as the analysis they ended up writing.

Plus the value of driving people to the original story (if linked).

Investigating got simpler and cheaper with the advent of digital technology, then the internet connected eveyone to much of that information. Can I get an amen from anyone who remembers pouring over microfiche?

Anyone with a little money, and some spare hours can make a competent attempt at it. Quality will very but hasn’t it always?Consumers always have to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Gerson can whine all he wants but he can’t wish away the work that some “blog” reporters have done and reputations they’ve earned.

It’s not the blogs who are killing the dead tree news, it’s websites like Craigslist, Monster, Autotrader, etc. Newspapers’ big moneymaker has traditionally been the classified ad. Newspaper display ads had to compete with TV, radio, etc, but there was no real competition for the classified. Many metropolitan areas have only one big daily, so the newspapers could charge monopoly rents and make out like a bandits.

Newspapers were slow to catch on to this and held off on doing their own online classifieds so as not to cannibalize their dead tree classified ad profits. Now, of course, it’s probably too late to do anything about it.

Why should I read all of every paper to get the stuff I want? Much better to go to an “aggregator” and quickly link to the stories I find of interest.

I certainly feel better informed about what is happening in the world than I did 20 yrs ago. I don’t think it’s just me turning into an old fart. :)

That being said, not every blog is run by people who are doing investigative journalism. Big, established press organizations rip off the little guys because they can get away with it, and as long as everyone thinks that there are sides to being on an effective media it is the general public who looks to the investigators for information who lose. When Radley isn’t cited for work that he has done, his site doesn’t generate the revenue that supports his ability to keep reporting. Without his reporting, the news orgs that steal his stories lose a great source for solid reporting because he can’t afford to do as much of it anymore. We all suffer while the finger-pointing goes, but at least there are more sides to this debate than TV versus newspapers now.