"New media is not replacing the need to "bear witness," it is spreading it beyond the elite few, and therefore making it harder for those elite few to get it as wrong as they've gotten it again and again -- from Stalin's Russia to Bush's Iraq."
- Georgia Popplewell
"IMing encourages a kind of casualness in conversation that will be the bane of the lawyers down the line. The reality is that if you want to engage in the equivalent of IMing, you have to pick up the phone." [as if that's the same - at all??]
- Anthony Citrano
"It sucks. It's really going to slow us down," complained another, saying that lawyers had warned that, along with instant messaging, White House software will restrict users to a range of sites roughly "like your average grade school."
- Anthony Citrano
Uhm well that would be pretty bad, to say the least. I have used their articles a lot in my research. Anyone got a few hundred M to help these guys out?
- Meryn Stol
I predicted this quite some time ago. Certainly their Web operations are not going to save them. In the nepotism department, Arthur Sulzberger Jr. appears to be about as competent as George W. Bush.
- Sean McBride
Sean, true. But still... part of my research is made possible by newspaper reportings. Not all experts have blogs. Through newspapers, I can read what experts without blogs are saying.
- Meryn Stol
Let's just hope everyone will "get" social media soon.
- Meryn Stol
Meryn -- oh, I fully agree. I've long been an admirer of The New York Times overall (while despising its political drift during the last decade). But we are living through the most radical information technology revolution in human history. Probably no traditional newspaper will be left standing.
- Sean McBride
Sean, yes, they'll all be gone. But I hope someone will keep their archives alive alive. In a few years, newspaper reporting won't matter much, but the urls should stay up.
- Meryn Stol
New technologies and institutions will inevitably develop to carry on the functions performed by traditional newspapers. There will be business oportunities galore, I am sure.
- Sean McBride
Microsoft could pick them up for a billion and integrate their archives and reporting into MSN. Sell off the Red Sox, the headquarter, etc. I'd think lots of media companies might be interested in the content of the Times. Not sure if this would create anti-trust issues.
- Thomas Hawk
Maybe something like that computational journalism, in recent article.
- Meryn Stol
Thomas -- I would especially expect Google to be interested in picking off the archival assets of these failing mainstream media properties. Larry Page seems to have a grand vision of how to integrate them into a single information system.
- Sean McBride
Hmm, I can see them launching their own equivalent of Archive.org at some time in the future, and presumably integrating it with Knol, Google Base and Google Groups, for what it's worth.
- Tyson Key
Google can buy all it wants - as long as we see it in beta.
- Roberto Bonini
Tyson -- and don't forget Google Books, which is an amazing and visionary venture. Eventually Google is going to get all these assets seamlessly integrated.
- Sean McBride
@Sean - Interesting that you mention Google Books, too. I know they've worked hard to come to a suitable arrangement with publishers, and they probably consider it a major milestone on their mission plan (i.e. organising and storing as much of the world's information as possible.
- Tyson Key
Google could buy them too of course, but I think MSFT is more desperate to get web traffic at present and the content from the NYT would be a valuable tool for online traffic. I'm surprised that neither has made overtures towards the Times yet. I'm not a lawyer but maybe there are regulatory or anti-trust things that I'm not thinking about.
- Thomas Hawk
the fluff will be gone soon, but deep investigative reporting and high level editorial is very valuable. they will find a way to monetize that.
- Pascal Bouvier
Thomas -- is there a key big brain at Microsoft who is thinking about the framework for pulling all these resources together? I admire Ray Ozzie, but I don't get the impression that he is quite on the same level as Larry Page. It's not enough to buy the properties; you need to develop them with a vision in mind.
- Sean McBride
By the way, take the trouble to read the full text of this article by Michael Hirschorn -- brilliant analysis.
- Sean McBride
From the article: "It’s possible that a David Geffen, Michael Bloomberg, or Carlos Slim would purchase The Times as a trophy property and spare the company some of this pain. Even Rupert Murdoch, after overpaying wildly for The Wall Street Journal, seems to be tempted by the prospect of adding The Times to his portfolio. But the experiences of Sam Zell...would surely temper the enthusiasm of all but the most arrogant of plutocrats."
- Ontario Emperor
Another: "And it will seriously damage the press’s ability to serve as a bulwark of democracy. Internet purists may maintain that the Web will throw up a new pro-am class of citizen journalists to fill the void, but for now, at least, there’s no online substitute for institutions that can marshal years of well-developed sourcing and reporting experience—not to mention the resources to, say, send journalists leapfrogging between Mumbai and Islamabad to decode the complexities of the India-Pakistan conflict."
- Ontario Emperor
Nice writing, eh? Perhaps Hirschorn can be persuaded to join Friendfeed.
- Sean McBride
*Sigh* I got nothin' she makes some great points and manages to do so with humor and without vitriol - I can respect that
- Marco(aureliusmaximus)
What are the benefits and demerits of a President who effectively uses Internet tools? I pondered this question in my essay The Coming Digital Presidency: http://digitalpresidency.com
- Ranjit Mathoda