Was surfing around the news after Apple's WWDC announcements, and ran across this article on wired. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/06/new-york-times-forces-apple-to-pull-popular-pulse-ipad-newsreader/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/06/ ... es+2%29%29</a> In a nutshell, Pulse is a phenomenal iPad RSS application that shows RSS feeds on the iPad. It comes with pre-configured links to some of the more popular RSS feeds, including the NYT RSS. The NYT saw their RSS feed on Steve Jobs demo (pic above), and somebody in their legal department got the fucked up notion that Pulse was somehow profiting (at $4 a shot) from the repackaging and re-selling of the NYT news feed. My first reaction was to laugh at the New York TImes' stupidity, and incredible lack of grok. Then I cried. The state of the "media" in this country is going to shit. The reporting is, for the most part, crap. It seems to me to be all overly sensationalized and is more a "look over here!" competition rather than an actual source of real news. And let's not even talk about the bullshit political agendas the various outlets are trying to push through. Ahh, the good old days. (Yes, get the fuck off my lawn!) I remember when CNN used to be a reputable and effective news source. The turning point was the Gulf War coverage, which was incredible. Here we were, sitting in our living rooms, eating dinner and having a beer, while watching live warfare on television from half-way around the world. That was revolutionary, and we couldn't stop watching. And there was none of the "Situation Room" crap, it was just straight up live video feeds and intelligent and relevant commentary. Then the next thing you know we watched 2 hours of a white Bronco being followed by 20 police cars at 20 mph, and everything went to shit. As much as the television media is bad, the worst off seem to be the newspapers. It seems that all you hear is how the classic institutions such as the NYT are slowly and painfully dieing, and how it's almost the end of an era. These last-minute attempts by to try and change their revenue models and adjust to the current state of technology and end-user habits is almost sad to watch. It's like watching carriage makers trying to deal with the advent of the automobile... sadly inevitable. Personally, I have no use for newspapers, and wish they'd just die off already. The sooner they're gone, the sooner something will effectively take their place or force them to reinvent themselves. FOCUS: Discuss the current state of the media. What's broken? Who's doing it right? If you were running news organizations, what would you do to stay alive? ALT-FOCUS: Where do you get your news from? What are your news gathering habits? Still read the paper on the john in the morning, or do you surf Google News on the commute to work?
Nothing relates the current state of the "reporters" on television like the BP spill in the Gulf. It seems that I just see reports saying "we can't get out to the site, because BP has tied up all of the available fishing boats and aircraft, so we're stuck here on a beach just outside of the hotel bar and really have nothing to say... back to you". Fuck that. Back in the day, when Geraldo Rivera was an in-field reporter, he would have said "fuck that", and would have made himself a dug-out paper mache canoe out of (ironically enough) day-old newspapers, dressed him and his film crew up as Cubans, and paddled his ass into harms way to get us the story.
Since <a class="postlink" href="http://www.wtfcnn.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.wtfcnn.com</a> got started, I have actually noticed cnn.com has gotten much better. Still not very good, but much less celebrity twitter reporting. Edit: After posting this, I checked cnn.com. One of the articles was "How not to be a Twitter dork." So close cnn, so close.
I'd say that news outlets trying to disguise advertising as news was one of the times where the shit really hit the fan. "Personally, I have no use for newspapers, and wish they'd just die off already. The sooner they're gone, the sooner something will effectively take their place or force them to reinvent themselves." You are forgetting that not everyone has internet access. For many people in rural areas, the newspaper is the only source of detailed daily news.
I especially love it when "journalists" make their way to a bad part of the world, about which everyone is saying "stay the fuck out, it's dangerous and you have an excellent shot at getting killed", and they proceed to get killed. The subsequent outrage from their fellow reporters makes me laugh. They seem to think that they have some sort of special right to go anywhere they please, and nobody should touch or harm them.
The phenomenon of tabloid news, comprised almost entirely of attention grabbing headlines with no real substance can be traced back to us. Turn to your left and look at the person next to you. Now turn to your right and do the same. One of you will not survive this night . . . . I mean, chances are good that 2 out of 3 of you doesn't give a shit about real news, or in depth coverage, are more concerned about Sandra Bullock's separation or who won Dancing With the Stars. The media feeds us what we want, what we will buy. If the majority of people ignored the crap that is out there, things would change damn skippy. I rely on a variety of media sources for my news, including NPR (both radio and podcasts), magazines, the internet, and yes, newspapers. I rarely watch the news on television and the newspapers I do buy (in addition to the one have delivered to my house every day) are reputable ones such as the NY Times or Wall Street Journal. By way of comparison, I wouldn't buy the NY Daily News or the NY Post on a bet. Both a pure shit, rags devoted to attention grabbing headlines. If everyone were more selective, the quality of reporting would improve. But most of us are too cheap, too lazy or too stupid to be bothered.
We should also make mention of the fact that Apple caved into their demands. They could have just removed that from the default RSS feed. I hate Apple from a philosophical standpoint so much it is hard for me to get to the actual focus. Focus: I watch about an hour of news on TV every day. Usually the local at 6pm and the National at 6:30, always NBC. I also read three websites: 1. Local - dispatch.com The website sucks. But there really isn't a better way to get central Ohio news. I read almost every article found here. 2. National - msnbc.com - I just browse this to make sure I'm not missing any huge national stories. 50% of the time I don't even read an article. 3. Tech News - Digg.com - I never read anything on this website other than the headlines on the top stories. If anything interests me I go out to google news and research it independently. I used to love this website when it first launched. Now I hate it more than soy milk. It has become very one sided and fan boyish. The political shit that gets posted there makes me want to cut people. I also read the Sunday paper. This is more out of tradition. But I love ahving my cup of coffee, sitting on the porch and enjoying this.
This is exactly why I never watch news on TV unless something really huge is breaking and I want to see the explosions, fire, personal anguish in HD. The number of "news" reports about Avatar on Fox owned stations was absurd. And that report that people were experiencing "Avatar depression" or whatever? Give me a fucking break. There really is no need anymore to get your news stories from anywhere but a decent news aggregate, and if you are looking for actual journalism or investigative reporting, BBC World Report is on most PBS stations. There is something that really gets me though these days. With the massive money that is in the media, at some events there seem to be more journalists than people involved. I am always seeing pictures of a couple of soldiers or riot police shooting, and then right next to them are 13 photographers taking pictures. Like this picture in Bangkok: Spoiler 4 police, 4 members of the press. I understand getting the story is important, but I never really feel bad when I hear about a journalist being caught in "the crossfire" and being killed/wounded when they always seem to be in the fucking line of fire.
Whoa - settle down there, old man. Geraldo Rivera was exactly who Robert Downey, Jr.'s character in Natural Born Killers was based on. In fact, I would say that he was a major pioneer in what became the sensationalist norm - I never felt like he would do "anything for the story," so much as he'd do anything to put his name in your mouth. I do totally agree with your point, though, of course. The news that old folks like you and I grew up on is nowhere to be found, and the list of reasons for that is long and complex. I think it was facilitated by the deregulation of media ownership, beginning in the mid-90's (wiki history link), but that's more the how than the why. I'm actually hoping someone here has a good recommendation, because I don't know of a single source of news that I trust factually or find to be without an agenda. The idea that objective and serious news isn't readily available to the public is more than just a "get off my lawn" issue, it's extremely worrisome - with the masses getting all their news from sources with political agendas, it's not hard to see how the banks have been having a huge party that we're all paying for, or how a bunch of yahoos with poorly spelled signs can become an actual political force. Or how anyone anywhere can think Sarah Palin is anything but an embarrassment, or how we tolerate bailouts and oil spills and the levels of education that we find acceptable. Grr. Get the fuck off my lawn.
According to the story, only for a little while. It seems that someone at the app store overreacted, but once the legal department investigated, they said "nothing wrong here".
The app store always shoots first, asks questions when it comes to removing apps. My company released an app so that people can guide their scopes from their iPhone or iPad. We were supposed to have it approved a while ago, before we sent out hundreds of thousands of catalogs. We were constantly getting calls from people bitching. Apple kept delaying, and finally the released it, only to pull it right back because "it seemed to similar to another app" right as we were sending out more catalogs with the app as a highlighted feature. Fuck the app store. They just make more work for me.
I read 99% of my news through RSS feeds. Every morning I read Reuters, CNN, NYT World, and a couple others. CNN is by far, the worst of the bunch. In fact I can't believe I haven't deleted that feed off yet. I rarely will watch the news on the TV, but I can say this though, BBC is pretty much the benchmark out there. I don't know how to fix shit in that industry, but if I owned a News channel, I'd start by actually reporting the fucking news. Not commenting on it. National evening News should not replicate Pardon the Interruption, or Real Time with Bill Maher. Those are two different mediums, and don't belong within a country mile of each other. And both sides are fucking guilty of doing exactly this. I'd also refuse to air anything that had anything remotely to do with Celebrity's. How many straight days of Michael Jackson coverage did we have to deal with? If it was more than 5 minutes it was enough. Sure people are still gonna want to see that shit, but not at my News Station. I think Entertainment Tonight has it covered anyway. If you allow those kind of people to muddy your numbers, you'll probably end up serving that master in the end. And that's why channels like CNN have lost integrity with some of us and devolved into what seems to be a better funded TMZ.
Is it a commentary on the sad state of my generation to say I get my news from The Daily Show? I mean, I do read my local paper each morning and occasionally surf through my Google homepage for news, but the majority of my understanding of current events comes from Jon Stewart.
The most objective news source I've found is the Christian Science Monitor, despite the name it has no religious slant. And like ballsack I read the Economist along with the Wall Street Journal. But news these days seems to be reported one hysterical headline and soundbite after another.
As a bleeding heart European, I can say that the media situation is similar here, maybe less pronounced, but heading in a very similar direction. To me, it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation: what came first? The dumbing down of society via reality shows and generally dimwitted entertainment or the deterioration of the media? I think that media outlets (including many reputable ones) are leaning towards providing sensationalist news items because there's a huge demand for it and viewers/readers generate advertising income. The old school reputable media outlets will retain a core customer base that refuses to consume any of the shit the others are dishing out 24/7 but this customer base will a lot smaller, so the companies will have to become smaller and more efficient. I don't think they'll disappear, but the market for "intelligent" media will shrivel up like a raisin. The Economist is a good example. Their publication retains the same high standards as ever, hell, it has even looked pretty much the same for 20 years. On their website, the tone is a lot more informal with blogs and simple but useful functionalities. It lives off of intelligent discourse as the discussion threads at the end of each article are at times even more valuable than the article itself. All in all, it unwaveringly retains quality without trying to bog up their page with useless/sensationalist shit. Of course, they're not in daily news, so there are other expectations to fulfil. I reckon that there's little room in the middle, i.e. either you stay true to your core ideals of delivering high quality news and don't try and venture into all the entertainment bullshit or you whore yourself out completely and go for quantity. Companies found in the middle will be the ones fucked by the ongoing and unstoppable developments in the market.
I only watch the Daily Show and Bill Maher for "News". I also read the New York Times on its personal App on the Iphone.
I watch the local news in the morning to find out the weather report and see what the traffic is like. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure why I even do this. I can look outside and see the weather, and traffic is always shit. Tradition, I guess. That, and it's nice to have something to gawk at while I eat a quick breakfast and put pants on. I used to watch Good Morning America before I left for work, but I realized that it is an absolutely terrible show. They latch onto one topic and don't let it go for weeks. Yes, we know about the BP spill, but there's other news, too. Unfortunately, that other news normally involves ABC affiliated programming. Nothing like devoting a half hour to who won Dancing with the Stars and giving 5 minutes to the soldiers in Iraq. Sam Champion is always in flood pants, knee deep in some disaster area and the other talking heads are annoying as hell. I want to stab George Stefanopopopolis in the neck with a pitch fork. Plus, there's no more hot Diane Sawyer. At work, I like Google's news feed and Fark. Google gives me the big news topics, Fark gives me...well, everything else. I watch 60 minutes only during Andy Rooney's bit. I'm waiting for him to stroke out on live TV while talking about how his TV isn't as appealing as it used to be. And why don't TV dinners come with a brownie anymore? You know, ovens can make brownies...and turkeys! Man, I miss Thanksgiving.