Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Not Really a Twitter Subject

Online is a world of nearly infinite choices for ...

readers, advertisers, information gathering...

The difference , for news and journalists between the Internet and Hard Print Media, is the difference between scarcity and abundance.

A newspaper needs a lead story, a lead page for its advertisers, and then has only a finite amount of pages it can fill.

A website or a blog has almost an infinite number of pages and information it can pull in (via links etc)

So do we get more and better info through the websites?

The other thing to consider is that newspapers and magazines have editors (and advertisers) that check what is written. It is said The New Yorker has the most through Fact Checkers out there.

A blog may be a fifteen year old in a bedroom, or a seasoned journalist, or a dedicated group of newshounds, or a complete prank.

The Internet has also been likened to a public washroom wall - anyone can write on it, and anyone does.

The Internet has the newspapers worried of course - because of its abundance and the fact that anyone can write. But to get a following - and in the'noise' of the Internet that is a work in and of itself - to create and keep a following, the website, the blog has to stand up on its own merits -has to have value. Just like a trusted newspaper.

Are Blogs and websites biased? Are newspapers?

So a well read website carries more information, and possibly faster than the old media.

Advertisers still get more bang for their buck in print, unless you look at a local market. See link.

But as the eyeballs move away from print. As no-one both T.V. and print can afford large news gatherers.

As T.V. and Newsprint turns to "entertainment' to try and hold readership - the web, though no-one except google has figured out how to make money there - the web is the true form of news now.

Whatever is said the way information is created and disseminated had changed forever.

The really interesting question - whats next?


Below a quote from a web article with a journalist

Google is the enemy of newspapers. Agree or disagree?

Google doesn’t kill newspapers. People kill newspapers.

Assuming the business model works out either way, and you had to choose, would you rather live in a world with MoJos and no newspapers, or thriving newspapers but no web?

At this point I couldn’t live without the web.

re; Nieman Journalism Lab

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