Online media is vastly improving journalism: Henry Blodget
Online media, hard to believe, still endures shovels full of badmouthing and tsk tsking from its detractors. The blogosphere in particular is routinely chopped up, skewered, fried and refried by its critics.
And that cyberspace represents the killing of journalism itself, well that’s a grumble still coming from some.
So the praise served up today for journalism and online media by Henry Blodget (rehabilitated) is a fine, fine thing to see (“On Our Third Birthday, Some Thoughts On Digital Media And The Future Of The Newspaper Business” Business Insider, July 20, 2010).
Excerpt:
The future of journalism, in fact, is bright. Despite the struggles of many newspapers–and the pain that many newspaper folks have experienced in the past 10 years–the world is vastly better informed than it was only a decade ago. Thanks to millions of blogs, experts, organizations, causes, digital media companies, print media companies, electronic media companies (Bloomberg, Reuters), Twitter, Facebook, and other next-generation information outlets, the world is now awash in primary and secondary information.
It’s true that this the information often appears in a rough, unedited, or incorrect form. But within seconds, millions of online fact-checkers descend upon it and hammer it into shape. This participatory, conversational journalism is certainly different than what came before, but it’s vastly more powerful…
Blodget’s praise is the summing up of a piece about the turbulent future of the newspaper business. He focuses in particular on the New York Times. There are some dismaying facts and figures that he says newspaper bosses aren’t telling their staff (read more here).
Illuminating.
UPDATE: Recent news story from Bloomberg Business Week on Henry Blodget and Business Insider (“Henry Blodget’s Risky Bet on the Future of News” by Andrew Goldman, July 8, 2010)
P.S. Really appreciate the free cartoons (see above) from Dave Walker at weblogcartoons.com
The blogosphere: voters or villains?
Which position U.S. political candidates take on this question may correlate largely with which political party they represent, according to an article in The Times (“Are Republicans internet Luddites?” blog by Tom Baldwin, Washington correspondent, The Times, Nov 28, 2007). Republican politicians are considered “inept” in their use of the Internet, according to the article, in contrast to their Democratic counterparts who are utilizing it more.
In illustration of the difference, the article cites the number of Facebook and MySpace friends of various candidates — leading Democratic candidate Obama, for example, has 360,000 buddies on these two sites, whereas Republican candidate Giuliani has only 20,000.
A possible reason for the partisan divide? Though acknowledging that it is a” generalization,” Baldwin says that Republican “activists are more likely to regard the web as a purveyor of porn and terror or, at best, a business tool.”
Do elections drive the polls, or do the polls drive the elections?
The polling industry is renown for being secretive about its methods, typically publishing only selected results from its surveys. For years, many people have voiced suspicions about the credibility of political polling – are those who do the polls truly non-partisan, are the questionnaires administered in a competent manner, who exactly is being polled, for example.
Now the skeptics have a champion, and it’s coming from the blogosphere. A group of political news organizations are turning the tables and launching an online project to scrutinize the polls themselves. Led by HuffingtonPost.com, the news groups are asking their respective website visitors to participate in a survey forum about their experiences with being polled.
Some of the survey questions include: who called them, when, did they agree to participate, were the questions worded fairly or slanted toward a desired response? You can see the complete online poll form with all the questions here.
