Sunday, May 31, 2009

One Day (Soon) There Will Be No MSM Monitor

"Shhhh. Newspaper publishers are quietly holding a very, very important conclave today. Will you soon be paying for online content?

Here's a story the newspaper industry's upper echelon apparently kept from its anxious newsrooms: A discreet Thursday meeting in Chicago about their future.


"Models to Monetize Content" is the subject of a gathering at a hotel which is actually located in drab and sterile suburban Rosemont, Illinois; slabs of concrete, exhibition halls and mostly chain restaurants, whose prime reason for being is O'Hare International Airport. It's perfect for quickie, in-and-out conclaves.


There's no mention on its website but the Newspaper Association of America, the industry trade group, has assembled top executives of the New York Times, Gannett, E. W. Scripps, Advance Publications, McClatchy, Hearst Newspapers, MediaNews Group, the Associated Press, Philadelphia Media Holdings, Lee Enterprises and Freedom Communication Inc., among more than two dozen in all. A longtime industry chum, consultant Barbara Cohen, "will facilitate the meeting."


Perhaps the age of content theft is coming to an end....
Ultimately, many in attendance will start charging for some online content because they don't know what else to do.'

How about TELLING the TRUTH instead of the fabulous, agenda-pushing lies??!!

"NOTICE TO ALL MEMBERS: PLEASE DO NOT POST ANY MORE LINKS TO AP STORIES. I love the rant about the cost of content creation, when mostly AP just accepts press releases from the White House and corporations and forwards them as news." --Wake the Flock Up

Why not? Now, more than ever, is a time for creativity and nerve, not just hunkering down and crossing fingers that safe harbor will appear on the horizon. It's a wonderful and important product, vital to American communities. Unlike a lot of jobs, you can look yourself in the mirror and know you're doing some good.

What are you guys smoking in those newsrooms?


Many newsrooms remain filled with a sense of mission
....

Yeah, a LYING, AGENDA-PUSHING one!


If one believes that newspapers are critical to democracy, one must wish the best to those attending the Thursday meeting. It's sort of like the auto industry: those guys in Detroit screwed things up something fierce but I do hope those companies succeed. In this case, I hope the newspaper honchos, and minions back home, devise new "models to monetize content" and marry them to sophisticated, high-quality editorial visions.


"We need to start a reporting co-operative where we all agree to post stories we cover local for the use of other blogs around the world. The US media may charge for content, but that just encourages us to use citations from foreign sources which are likely to be more accurate and honest anyway. I would not mind paying for online content if they were truthful with us, but why pay for the government's lies?" -- Wake the Flock Up

Of course, the Globe didn't report it until SLOW SATURDAY!

Related:
Saying Goodbye to the Boston Globe

"Time Warner CEO hints at online fees" by Michael Liedtke, Associated Press | May 30, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO - Time Warner Inc. chief executive Jeffrey Bewkes chimed in yesterday with the chorus of publishers wondering how much longer newspapers and magazines can afford to keep giving away their stories on the Internet.

See ya!! I ALREADY PAID my $1.50 (or $4 on Sunday) and I'M NOT PAYING AGAIN!

And IF I DON'T READ a PRINTED PAPER, I am a LOT LESS LIKELY to POST and LINK their stories since I RARELY GO THERE WITHOUT a PRINTED COPY! I guess its farewell soon, 'eh, Globe.

Good: What Is My Boston Globe Made Of?

With little hope that online ad sales will ever compensate for the erosion on the print side, more publishers are drawing up plans to charge for access to websites that have been mostly free for the past decade.

See ya, s***ters. Won't miss you; I'm sure my mouth will feel much better about things once I cease reading the agenda-pushing crapola!

Newspaper industry executives met Thursday in Chicago to discuss the prospects....

--more--"

Besides, it doesn't matter; there are no good journalists out there anymore, nor will there be
:

"Nieman conference suspended" by Milton J. Valencia, Globe Staff | May 30, 2009

Harvard University's Nieman Foundation for Journalism announced a series of budget cuts yesterday, including suspension of its popular writing conference, in the latest financial setback for the university and another strike to journalism.

The cuts occur as the journalism industry is struggling, particularly newspapers with plunging circulation and advertising revenue.

Not my fault; I've been a sucker and bought them.

The conference was seen as a valuable resource both for the country's elite and developing journalists.

Translation: they are training the next group of propagandists how to write.

Anne Hull, a prize-winning reporter with The Washington Post, a 1995 Nieman fellow and a speaker at its conferences:

"Reporting.... the very thing that's nearing extinction in journalism right now...."

Yeah, they are just a bunch of stenographers passing along government hand-outs and lies now.

Robert H. Giles, the foundation's curator, said the organization is facing the same economic challenges hurting other organizations, as the Nieman Foundation faces an 8 percent cut in its endowment payout....

See: Where Your Pension Went

The suspension of the national conference is expected to have a widespread effect. In past years, more than 1,000 journalists and writers, experienced and college-aged, came to the Boston-based gathering to study the best in reporting and narrative writing, a form of journalism storytelling.

Well, it ISN'T TRUTH, no matter what they call it.

Giles said Nieman's devotion to narrative writing will remain through its website features and publications. He also said the foundation will continue to serve as a tool for journalists, not only for newspapers but for new forms of media as well.

They MUST mean BLOGS!!!!!

"We think we play an important role in moving forward for journalism," he said. "Our focus is journalism, and we're fundamentally optimistic."

Tom French, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter from the St. Petersburg Times who plans to begin teaching at the University of Indiana, said the cuts are the result of the economy and should not be seen as a reflection on journalism or narrative writing....

Actually, they SHOULD because IT'S the LIES, stoo-pid!

See: The Boston Globe Admits Iraq Lies Killed It

Hull, who shared in the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for public service for her work exposing mistreatment of wounded veterans at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, said that the suspension of the conference is the latest setback for the craft, as newspapers have cut back on the number of journalists they train.

It's a DYING INDUSTRY!

About 500 people attended the last conference, many of them book authors, not reporters. Hull recalled attending the conference several years ago and seeing the excitement of young journalists who braved a snowstorm just for a chance to learn from some of the industry's top writers.

"It was like going to see a Springsteen concert halfway across the country," she said. "Everything is being scaled back right now, and this is just sort of one more elimination of training in our craft."

Look at the arrogance, comparing themselves and their lame-ass work to the Boss!

And I didn't know slinging bullshit propaganda was a craft.

Now I do.

--more--"

So what do you tell the kids who have journalism degrees and are graduating?


"What to tell my journalism grads" by Madeleine Blais | May 25, 2009

This spring, I was tempted to give an un-graduation speech and to suggest that the newly minted grads lower their expectations, that they rein in their rambunctious natures, and recognize a painful truth:

Even in the best of times, your 20s can be rough.

You're going to run up against bosses who have it in for you. The fault lines in your family will become clear in a way they may not have been earlier in your life. Friendships you thought would last forever get redefined and sometimes erode altogether. Your very youthfulness will inspire as much envy as it does admiration.

And these are not the best of times.... you can volunteer to do a newsletter for an organization you admire, coach in a sport you might want to write about, create programs or videos for a charity event you support - something, anything, to stay in the game.

As long as they aren't about 9/11 Truth.

Why?

Because you really do never know.

And then I thought twice. Young people setting forth in the tradition of James Joyce to forge in the smithy of their souls the uncreated consciousness of their race need pipe dreams, not lectures, now as much as ever....

That's what BONGS are FOR!!! Is she saying lie to the kids?

I saw myself at that age: juiced with energy, low on wisdom, and champing at the bit to find my place in the world.... but by the time they leave, some have produced 100-page honors theses with titles like "Celebration Riots at UMass" about the collision of sports, alcohol, and high spirits after big games, and "A Longitudinal Study of the Effects of the Guest Editor Program at Mademoiselle on the Careers of Women who Participated in the 1960s," and "Nationalism in the Japanese Press."

That's the best ya got?

"Should I apply to be an assistant manager at Wendy's?" asks a student whose dream it was to work for a small-town paper, her voice shrill with disappointment.

Our town's Wendy's closed down.

With luck, they stay in touch. They e-mail with their book ideas, they send the article they wrote for Sports Northwest about a Major League baseball player named Allie Moulton who crossed the color barrier when no one else did, and they ask your advice over an emergency cup of tea whether to continue with Teach for America in Bridgeport, Conn. (That was easy: yes.)

Yeah, you are a big help, teach.

School got any job openings?

--more--"