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01/ test/cd 01/ test/cd 01/ test/cd 01/ test/cd 1.07.09 Test for the Professor! 10.22.09 Two New Sites for DLMWeb A couple of interesting projects 10.22.09 Marshall Crenshaw - Live Webcast - Friday, October 23, 2009 12Noon EST Keep listening to 98.1FM Red Hook, NY WKZE More.. |
June 3, 2005 The end of a free press 6/2/05 No sooner than we began posting links to various Berkshire Eagle articles and letters to the editor, in the hopes of provoking critical discussion of the local media (and indeed, very quickly conversations began, as you can see from the various comments visitors have posted this past week), did the Eagle redesign its website (more on that atrocity in coming days and weeks), including ripping down all of its archival material. So now those links we posted to old articles and letters are dead, and if you want to find them (good luck trying to find them using the Eagle's search engine, because I tried and it doesn't work), you'll have to pay $3 per hit -- that's right -- it'll cost you $3 to read some lousy article, review, or letter to the editor. But you have to pay BEFOREHAND, so buyer beware! More at The Rogovoy Report If a publication wanted to increase revenue via the web, wouldn't it make more sense to facilitate the placement of classified (and display) advertising. Or offer value added services to their advertisers? It has always been my understanding the newspapers sold the paper to cover the distribution/printing costs, and that the advertisers were the revenue source. Moreover, the advertiser's value proposition was that the newspaper had an audience, and that was what an insertion fee was predicated upon. Now, at least in the Eagle's case, the model seems to be to charge for information, and that is a failed model. It is a failure as a business model when the web has made ALL information available ALL the time for essentially NO cost. It is a dereliction of duty as a cultural model, when the unique function of a newspaper (or any editorially selected informational source) is to make judgments as to relevance, and to organize and facilitate the access to information. Small wonder that as newspapers become conglomerated corporate holdings (Dinosaurs) the little mouse driven web renders them redundant. dlm 6/3/2005  So who is this guy, Singleton? Try this: The Evolution of Dean Singleton Once, Angry Reporters Threw Beer Cans at Him. Now He's Reaching for Journalistic Respectability BY SCOTT SHERMAN Last June, a leading American newspaper publisher journeyed to Moscow, where, in a gilded conference room deep in the Kremlin, he addressed an audience that included presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin. The occasion was a White House- and Kremlin-sponsored summit of media executives, who will jointly endeavor to remake the Russian media along free-market lines. "A free, independent media is the backbone of democracy," the publisher proclaimed to his guests. "But media cannot be independent without economic viability. And that viability must come without government participation." The publisher was quick to dispense advice on journalism ethics. What happens, he was asked during his visit, if a wealthy advertiser insists that a story be killed? "Listen to me," he intoned, "Never, never, never do we let an advertiser influence our independent press!" More At: Columbia Journalism Review 6/3/2005 | ||