Journalism, blogs and the future
Herewith an exchange with a University of Minnesota student:
I am a graduate student at the University of Minnesota and am writing my final paper for a class, "The Future of News: Is Journalism Dead?" During the next few days, I would love to get your answers to a couple of questions.
The class deals with journalism's role in democracy and what kind of future we can expect journalism to have. For my paper, I'm focusing on web logs and their effects on more traditional forms of journalism, mainly newspapers, as well as their possible impact on the future of journalism. My questions for you are the following:
1) Why did you decide to start your own blog?
2) What advantages/disadvantages do you think blogs have over more traditional forms of journalism?
3) What role do you see blogs playing in the future (fading away, replacing other forms of media, etc...)
Thank you so much for your time! Any answers you could give would greatly enhance my work.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Lippman
Hi Elizabeth,
I will comment in the same order as your questions:
1. To have a place to post thoughts with regularity and to open an exchange with others. I hope to cause someone else to think about the subject and open a dialogue.
2. I used to write a weekly column (see my website www.archibald99.com ) but it had only a local audience and limited circulation in a weekly community newspaper. I also did book reviews for a major newspaper in central South Carolina. The blog has the potential of an indefinite audience throughout the world. I stress "potential" because with minor exceptions I have not experienced feedback from the backwaters of the globe. Print journalism is very selective. Papers run 40-60% or 45-55% in terms of news and advertising space respectively. The number of column inches devoted to commentary is miniscule in the overall context, and most often reflects (as in looking in a mirror) the political persuasion of the paper's editors. It is funny but Op-Ed is supposed to mean something other than "on the opposite page." Yet many papers select columns only from columnists with whom they are in political-sync, and they do not freely give space to counterpoint thinking. The so-called "free press" in America is free only to those who own a newspaper. A blog is independent and reflects individuality. It gets thrown out there in cyberspace and anyone can respond from any perspective.
3. There are so many blogs out there. A great deal of them are idiotic, they talk about bathing cats, worshiping stars and people's personal failures in relationships. (I realize the blogs I refer to as "idiotic" are probably serious to their authors.) As such things proliferate the number of "hardly anyone cares" blogs will be the millstone around the neck of serious bloggers. Until serious bloggers find a way to more widely publicize the existence of blogs and develop a following they will remain a curious niche in the information age. I do not see them as threats to the print, radio or television media. Recent studies show most people who have a computer in their home use it for e-mail. Writing, keeping books, storing pictures and recording music are a distant second. Most of the people I know who have computers do not have web sites; they do not understand blogs and are afraid to tackle the learning job.
4. I wish you well in your studies and hope these views are helpful.
Francis X. Archibald
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#107
Friday, December 20
Fallout from Lott
The Post and Courier (Charleston, S.C.) today devoted 36 column inches (page 12A) to criticizing former President Bill Clinton for calling Republican criticism of Sen. Lott’s comments “pretty hypocritical.” Mr. Clinton told CNN Mr. Lott “embarrassed them (Republicans) by saying in Washington what they do on the back roads every day.”
On the following page (13A), in the same paper, The Post & Courier gave The Rev. Joseph A. Darby, an African-American minister and first vice president of the South Carolina state conference of branches of the NAACP, thirty column inches to say the same things Mr. Clinton said. Examples: Mr. Lott’s “(H)ead, however, told him he was at a party among friends of like mind where he could speak freely and be himself. His head failed to remind him that cameras were rolling.” And, “The Trent Lott story reminded me of something related to me by an influential and outraged friend who happens to be white. Almost a year before the recent Charleston County School Board elections, he told me of a discussion among other influential ‘friends’ at a social event on what to do about the ‘coons running the school board.’”
On the front page, The Post and Courier carried a story about Kwadjo Campbell, an African-American Charleston city councilman, declaring his intention to join the Republican Party next month. He is going to talk more about his decision sometime around the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. Campbell originally ran for office as a Democrat, although in the latest election the council seats were on a non-partisan basis. Campbell's intended defection ought to raise the intellectual level of both parties.
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#106
The Post and Courier (Charleston, S.C.) today devoted 36 column inches (page 12A) to criticizing former President Bill Clinton for calling Republican criticism of Sen. Lott’s comments “pretty hypocritical.” Mr. Clinton told CNN Mr. Lott “embarrassed them (Republicans) by saying in Washington what they do on the back roads every day.”
On the following page (13A), in the same paper, The Post & Courier gave The Rev. Joseph A. Darby, an African-American minister and first vice president of the South Carolina state conference of branches of the NAACP, thirty column inches to say the same things Mr. Clinton said. Examples: Mr. Lott’s “(H)ead, however, told him he was at a party among friends of like mind where he could speak freely and be himself. His head failed to remind him that cameras were rolling.” And, “The Trent Lott story reminded me of something related to me by an influential and outraged friend who happens to be white. Almost a year before the recent Charleston County School Board elections, he told me of a discussion among other influential ‘friends’ at a social event on what to do about the ‘coons running the school board.’”
On the front page, The Post and Courier carried a story about Kwadjo Campbell, an African-American Charleston city councilman, declaring his intention to join the Republican Party next month. He is going to talk more about his decision sometime around the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. Campbell originally ran for office as a Democrat, although in the latest election the council seats were on a non-partisan basis. Campbell's intended defection ought to raise the intellectual level of both parties.
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#106
Monday, December 16
Quality of life
Nothing will improve the quality of life for prisoners generally like the sentencing of a couple of bus loads of white collar corporate executives.
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#105
Nothing will improve the quality of life for prisoners generally like the sentencing of a couple of bus loads of white collar corporate executives.
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#105
Thursday, December 5
SUV = JERK?
Excerpts from The Washington Monthly Online
Bumper Mentality
A review of Keith Bradsher's High and Mighty: SUVs
By Stephanie Mencimer
"Well, according to New York Times reporter Keith Bradsher's new book, High and Mighty, the connection between the two isn't a coincidence. Unlike any other vehicle before it, the SUV is the car of choice for the nation's most self-centered people; and the bigger the SUV, the more of a jerk its driver is likely to be.
"According to market research conducted by the country's leading automakers, Bradsher reports, SUV buyers tend to be "insecure and vain. They are frequently nervous about their marriages and uncomfortable about parenthood. They often lack confidence in their driving skills. Above all, they are apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors and communities. They are more restless, more sybaritic, and less social than most Americans are. They tend to like fine restaurants a lot more than off-road driving, seldom go to church and have limited interest in doing volunteer work to help others."
"He says, too, that SUV drivers generally don't care about anyone else's kids but their own, are very concerned with how other people see them rather than with what's practical, and they tend to want to control or have control over the people around them. David Bostwick, Chrysler's market research director, tells Bradsher, "If you have a sport utility, you can have the smoked windows, put the children in the back and pretend you're still single."
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#104
Excerpts from The Washington Monthly Online
Bumper Mentality
A review of Keith Bradsher's High and Mighty: SUVs
By Stephanie Mencimer
"Well, according to New York Times reporter Keith Bradsher's new book, High and Mighty, the connection between the two isn't a coincidence. Unlike any other vehicle before it, the SUV is the car of choice for the nation's most self-centered people; and the bigger the SUV, the more of a jerk its driver is likely to be.
"According to market research conducted by the country's leading automakers, Bradsher reports, SUV buyers tend to be "insecure and vain. They are frequently nervous about their marriages and uncomfortable about parenthood. They often lack confidence in their driving skills. Above all, they are apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors and communities. They are more restless, more sybaritic, and less social than most Americans are. They tend to like fine restaurants a lot more than off-road driving, seldom go to church and have limited interest in doing volunteer work to help others."
"He says, too, that SUV drivers generally don't care about anyone else's kids but their own, are very concerned with how other people see them rather than with what's practical, and they tend to want to control or have control over the people around them. David Bostwick, Chrysler's market research director, tells Bradsher, "If you have a sport utility, you can have the smoked windows, put the children in the back and pretend you're still single."
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#104
Tuesday, December 3
Africa
I plan to visit South Africa early next year. If anyone has any interesting input I would be glad to hear from you.
Thanks.
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#103
I plan to visit South Africa early next year. If anyone has any interesting input I would be glad to hear from you.
Thanks.
If not already there, visit my website.
E-mail your comments
#103
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