newspapers
aardvarchaeology | March 22, 2013Kay Glans used to edit the literary pages of Svenska Dagbladet, Sweden's main conservative* newspaper, and Axess Magasin, a conservative Swedish arts & social sciences mag that also has a TV channel. The latter's standard is high, and I've been particularly pleased to find repeated staunch rebuttals of post-modernism there. What I don't like much in Glans's oeuvre is a tendency for aesthetic idealism and aesthetic conservatism, of the canon-stroking sort. His writers tend to believe that there are classics that every educated person should read. I'm an aesthetic relativist and accept no…
grrlscientist | March 5, 2010tags: How Will the End of Print Journalism Affect Old Loons Who Hoard Newspapers?, newspapers, print journalism, newspaper hoarding, ONN, Onion News Network, comedy, humor, satire, fucking hilarious, streaming video
The decline of the newspaper?? Ransom notes, papier-mâché and slacker gift wrapping will never be the same! Worse, what will crazy old loons pack their houses to the rafters with?
bioephemera | May 26, 2009
This would be funnier if it weren't so painfully true. Also see the sequel.
I didn't get to this for a few days because I was working too hard to blog last week. In the meantime, Language Log responded with an especially egregious example of this sort of oversimplification.
Cartoon by Jorge Cham, via Sheril at the Intersection.
ddobbs | April 3, 2009What are the relative strengths and weaknesses of long-form, slow-bake, "mainstream" journalism and the idiom we call the blogosphere? As per Bora, the meaning of these terms are shifting as we speak. Last night, using my recent story and blogging on PTSD as a point of focus, I put in my latest two cents on this subject at my talk -- actually a long conversation with host and audience -- at the NYU Science, Health and Environmental Program's "Inside-Out" lecture series.
This was a crowd of writers, journalism profs, and journalism students, and I think we were all surprised at how many…
bioephemera | March 31, 2009
Jacek Utko argues that there is no convincing reason why newspapers should survive - but that good design might be able to transform them into something more successful. In addition to numerous awards, Utko's fearless use of white space, bold color, and dramatic imagery has won significant increases in readership (up to 100%) for several Eastern European newspapers.
A real newspaper redesign involves more than changing the layout. The layout is essential, but by no means the only element. First we define the goal, later the necessary content-changes, and only then do we get to design.…
ddobbs | March 26, 2009From Jay Rosen:
As the crisis in newspaper journalism grinds on, people watching it are trying to explain how we got here, and what we’re losing as part of the newspaper economy crashes. Some are trying to imagine a new news system. I try to follow this action, and have been sending around the best of these pieces via my Twitter feed. It’s part of my experiment in mindcasting, which you can read about here.
I've not read all of it, but there's some good stuff in there.
bioephemera | March 19, 2009
Illustration by David Parkins, Nature
Today, Nature released a news feature by Geoff Brumfiel on the downturn in mainstream science media. We've all known that this is happening; the alarms become impossible to ignore when Peter Dysktra and his team at CNN lost their jobs last year. For mainstream outlets like CNN or the Boston Globe to cut science may seem appalling - but in an unforgiving economic climate which has already triggered the collapse of major newspapers like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, such cuts are logical, because science reporting isn't a big money-maker. The question…
ddobbs | January 22, 2009
In response to my post on himself, the NY Times, Zyprexa, Infinite Mind, etc.
ddobbs | January 19, 2009Seth Godin offers another take on what we might miss if/when newspapers die: investigative journalism.
What's left is local news, investigative journalism and intelligent coverage of national news. Perhaps 2% of the cost of a typical paper. I worry about the quality of a democracy when the the state government or the local government can do what it wants without intelligent coverage. I worry about the abuse of power when the only thing a corrupt official needs to worry about is the TV news. I worry about the quality of legislation when there isn't a passionate, unbiased reporter there to…
ddobbs | January 19, 2009I stirred some ire last week when I asserted that the Times (for -- disclosure dept -- whom I sometimes write) and similar mainstream papers offer a public good through their unique combination of a) access to information and 2) clout with the public and government. Several readers took me to task (see the comments section of the post linked above), arguing that these papers have failed their public mission by dropping the ball several times lately, most notably during the run-up to the Iraq War. "Let the dinosaur die," is the argument. In a similar vein, some science bloggers (see this post…