A great article From The Economist print edition on the possibilities of “citizen journalism” as traditional newspapers decline:
Craig Newmark, of Craigslist, says that “journalism needs to become a community service rather than a profit centre,†and is working on making this happen. As The State of the News Media puts it, “the worry is not the wondrous addition of citizen media, but the decline of full-time, professional monitoring of powerful institutions.†That, after all, is what a free press in democracies is supposed to be for.
Share and Enjoy:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
VS. 
Some stories lend themselves to great headlines (”Cocaine cola a real buzz” for instance), but the demise of the Village Voice tends to not offer much humor (except in the Twainian sense of “news of my death is greatly exagerated”). I have mixed feelings. For those of you outside the Manhattan echo chamber, the Voice’s storied tradition of radical politics and culture was absorbed by a national chain of weekly urban “independents,” New Times Media based in Phoenix. The company also owns the LA Weekly, Seattle Weekly and SF Weekly among others. Many are alarmed by the firing of long-time investigative reporter, James Ridgeway. Add to the mix resignations, articles with bogus anecdotes, a shift in priorities and the international trend of media consolidation, and you get one pissed off crowd of readers. Plus New Yorkers are a tough audience to please. Go to a Yankees game and you will know what I mean.
Unfortunately, I think the Voice lost its relevance a long time ago. Continue reading ‘Village Voiceless, Village of the Damned’
Share and Enjoy:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
Implicit in the following LA Times story is a lament from the industry (yet more evidence that all media do is report on themselves) that the era of an informed citizenry is a thing of the past because there will be no infrastructure for information gathering. Corporate media love to think of themselves as the saviors of civilization, but I challenge the assumptions that a) information makes us better citizens, and b) information makes us more knowledgeable.
Media are in the business of self-defining their own reality and defining the “public.” They want us to buy into their self-importance. Of course they will be pissed that people stop reading the spun-out nonsense that fills space between ads. It takes me exactly five minutes to read a newspaper, and another five minutes to grieve for the loss of tree pulp that created it.
PS One of the fringe benefits of a declining print press:
Six Jobs That Won’t Exist In 2016, such as advertising creatives.
More News Outlets, Fewer Stories: New Media ‘Paradox’ - Los Angeles Times:
“A ‘new paradox of journalism’ has emerged in which the number of news outlets continues to grow, yet the number of stories covered and the depth of many reports is decreasing, according to an annual review of the news business being released today by a watchdog group.”
Share and Enjoy:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
