Category: media (Page 2 of 3)

The last few days “Jim Jekyll” has been dropping down the wisdom in the comment threads here, picking apart some of my new media posts with a rapier-mind.

For some reason, I typically know 90 percent of the people who comment on my blog. Well, “for some reason” typically is I write posts for certain people and beg them to comment, but Jekyll’s comments have come totally out of the blue, and for an unsolicited commenter, he’s freaking good.

Here’s his latest on my favorite new topic, the now dead Sitting Duck:

Yeah, it’s too bad the Sitting Duck was so poorly executed and generally sophomoric, although that can be done well too, except it wasn’t. It seemed like it could have been a good publication if it really tried.

But hey, why does it have to be The Olympian, or any other newspaper for that matter, that brings these issues to the forefront. Newspapers are dying, so wtf now?

And, a few minutes later, he reposts:

And to follow up on that thought …

Is an alternative publication really even viable in the Olympia market? Seriously. I’m not questioning the need for one but the print model takes loads of cash and a few good martyrs. That was in better days. Now, it’s just not viable. The advertising market was shifting away from print long before the current economic downturn and the cash cow of classifieds has long since disappeared since Craig’s List.

So everyone can be a publisher now with the internet but it takes a certain level of professionalism to do it well and who is going to spend the horrendous amounts of time to do good investigative pieces for FREE? Google’s CEO was just bemoaning this ironically enough but also saying they won’t try to prop up the dying print industry, even though they could, because the industry is no longer economically viable. Everybody wants the news, everybody wants an alternative voice but no one wants to pay for it due, in large part, to Google.

Seriously, what is the answer?

I’m not sure what the answer is, but I’m sure I’m going to be thinking about it more now.

Here’s the rest of Jim’s recent comments:

Jim on New media outcroppings
Jim on the shrinking capitol press corp

He’s obviously someone familiar with being a reporter or editor, maybe one of the dozens of recently unemployed newsroom people sadly let go in the last year. Either way, he’s a sharp mind, and I wouldn’t mind it much if he set up shop and start spewing his own blog. Though, I have a feeling that he wouldn’t like having to do it for free.

Which does sort of get to Jim’s central question, how we move past the current model of journalism and into what we’ll have next. I’m thinking it revolves around two things: freedom of association (that bastard step child of political freedoms) and the good ol’Pioneer and Democrat.

Anyone catch my drift?

As newspapers contract all over the freaking place, its really nice to hear about a new effort in Oregon. Scott Olson and Craig Murphy, both of whom I used to work with in a previous life at the Montesano Vidette, are kick starting a new newspaper in Springfield:

Having learned that The Springfield Beacon had ceased operations earlier in the year, Olson began thinking about starting up another paper in Springfield. He contacted Craig Murphy, one of his former employees at The Vidette, to see if he would be interested in becoming the editor for a startup paper.

As luck would have it, Murphy and his wife, Julie, were anxious to move back to the Pacific Northwest after spending the last few years in Iowa.

“Once I had Craig on board as my editor, I began putting the other pieces in place for the newspaper,” Olson said. “Craig is an excellent journalist and has been highly respected everywhere he has worked.

Newspapers and Springfield are lucky to have two guys like Scott and Craig. They’re about as close as you can get to true community journalists. I hope things work out down there.

Few things though:

1. I’m encouraged that Scott and Craig describes their newspaper website as intended to be “utilized and updated on a regular basis.” This simply isn’t enough. Even daily papers are getting into the online community building business.

Its not enough to provide news, you need to provide space for people to discuss their community as well. Good news, though. The Register-Guard has a handful of blogs, some of which line up directly against what the Springfield Times is trying to do (prep sports, prep football, and Close to Home). While I’m not sure about the blog traffic at the RG, they don’t seem to get many comments on the blogs that would compete with the ST.

2. So, while the current web package your running is ok, you’ll eventually want to change over to something like wordpress or scoop. Maybe even Drupal. They’re all free, and they can easily be adapted into a “news” format.

3. In the same line as #2, turn over a portion of your site to your readers. There’s only two of you right now, so it will make the news gathering if not easier, then more interesting.

4. “Troll the bright waters of the internet”(quote via here). There are likely people blogging in Springfield already. It isn’t journalism, but they’re talking about their lives, and I’ve seen some good blogging that would pass for journalism and 40 percent of small papers.

So, get to know your local bloggers, they will probably help you out.