Comments on: Ode to Newspapers

By: Mark W Rummel

Mark W Rummel — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 20:29:03 +0000

Don’t sell off all the printing presses just yet. I too agree the daily (and weekly) newspaper business is changing dramatically, but there will always be a market for professional print on paper, for various reasons.

Within possibly 10 years, I expect “dailies” to publish perhaps three times a week, using the U.S. Mail to deliver copies. Newspapers have more content on the front page alone than do 30-minute TV (or radio) newscasts, and a minority of readers still want that depth.

Yes, I expect West Michigan may be served by just one regional paper, the Tri-Cities by another, etc., but the total demise of newspapers was previously predicted when radio, movies, TV and now the internet came along… and I believe they’ll still survive, although altered, smaller and more briefly, forever.

Mark W. Rummel, formerly Booth, Gannett, Cap Cities/ABC and even Disney Company newspaper employee (now in the pizza business for myself… people have to eat daily…)

By: Guest E-mail

Guest E-mail — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 14:24:04 +0000

Reading Susan Demas’s new column, coupled with finding out this morning that the increasingly-devoid-of-content Lansing State Journal now costs 50% more on the rack, makes me very worried. Outside of online content — and who knows how that will ever be monitored for quality, accuracy, etc. — all that will be left soon is the 11 o’clock news hole on TV, which consists, after subtracting out way more than we need of weather and way more than we need of sports and invitations to partake in stupid online polls about mostly trivial aspects of life, of about 11 minutes of actual news coverage, some of that unbelievably superficial repetition of national stories and much of the rest wasteful opportunities for neophytes to do pointless interviews with “officials.” Arrrghhh! Save us from it all, Dome!

By: Blaine Lam

Blaine Lam — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 01:05:20 +0000

In old and new media, no one is “required” to do anything. That’s why we have freedom of the ‘press.’ But, did those empowered by the traditions of the ‘old’ media consider such freedom a license of sorts? Is MSNBC or Fox old media or new media? Is the structure of the old media not a system of checks and balances? Is power the goal?

By: Susan Lackey

Susan Lackey — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:54:30 +0000

The online world ensures that we have a lot of access to something, but I’m not sure it all falls under the heading of ‘information.’ What the new media hasn’t been able to give us is the checks and balances that typically came from the editorial process in old media. In the online world, would Woodward and Bernstein been required to have two sources for everything? And absent that, would their work have had the power to bring down a presidency?

How does the reader evaluate the quality of the information they are receiving?

By: Blaine Lam

Blaine Lam — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:06:19 +0000

You’ve made many good points, Susan. As a person who worked in the media for 10 years, I lament some of the same things you do. Interesting that you say “our job is to hold officials accountable” when it is also your job to be accountable — that is, keep the public’s trust. And with that as a starting point, we will see who and what survives, because on the positive side of the ledger, never have so many had so much access to so much information, and ideally, that’s the way it will be from here on in.

Blaine Lam
Lam & Associates
Kalamazoo