Media protection held up by energy bill

Proponents of the media shield law will have to wait a little longer to realize national protection against having to divulge their sources. While not defeating the bi-partisan measure, they failed to act on it and it therefore might appear during the fall session. Supposedly they failed to act because they wanted to focus on the energy bill. Hmm. We'll see if anything gets done with that either.

The more probable scenario is it will be reintroduced after the election, since the Bush administration has posted numerous letters from congressional personnel objecting to the bill on its Department of Justice Office Of Public Affairs site. Of course, everything is in the interest of national security.

There seems to be some agreement on a substitute version to make it easier for intelligence officers to prosecute leaks of classified information and narrow the definition of journalist.

The version that people are agreeing on, but not voting on, would define journalist to cover only those who gather information with the intention of publishing it-supposedly distinguishing bloggers and freelance journalists who are legitimate from those who aren't. But I'm not sure it wouldn't cover bloggers and freelance journalists. Here are some definitions in the bill:

(2) COVERED PERSON- The term `covered person'--

(A) means a person who is engaged in journalism;

(B) includes a supervisor, employer, parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate of a person described in subparagraph (A); and ...to complete the whole section would be too long, so I'll just shorten it to say it does not cover terrorists or foreign agents,etc.)


(5) JOURNALISM- The term `journalism' means the regular gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting, or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public.

Bloggers and freelancers can most certainly qualify under these definitions.

Regardless, federal action should be taken to provide uniform protections and constraints against the press through such a law. Right now, it's up to each state and each judge in each courtroom. That's hard to manage without a Supreme Court ruling. There are too many interpretations, journalists aren't sure which state or local law they could be held under.

Well, here's a clash of old and new media rules. Product placement on the news. We've seen bits and pieces of product placement in the past on entertainment shows such as American Idol showing coke and Numbers depicting Dannon yogurt (I think that's what it was). But we haven't before seen product placement on the news. What's next? TV news desk people wearing clothes with big logos on them? Will television sets begin to look like race cars with a gazillion ads on them? Are newscasters now walking advertisers? Are the backdrops on the sets going to be electronic advertising boards?

This blurs that line between objectivity and sponsorship. Granted, McDonald's has to advertise (well, maybe not) and the only way news media can make money is to sell advertising space because they can't produce the news for free.

But what happens when the news has to report a discrimination case against McDonald's or a hot coffee lawsuit or a you served me trans fat products and now I'm fat lawsuit? Credibility will be at stake. What's to keep a regular viewer from saying, they're not telling us everything because the advertising revenue would suffer if they told a story damaging to an advertiser. The news media might say they would still broadcast the story regardless, but the perception, and it's all about perception isn't it, will be otherwise.

Will journalism go the way of the newspaper?

Three media conglomerates reported huge drops in net revenue for the first quarter of 2008, with Lee Enterprises, Inc. as the loss leader with an 84-percent drop in net income. Lee, McClatchy and E.W. Scripps are all reporting cost-cutting strategies: staff cuts, cutting newsprint consumption and reducing other expenses. They all blame declining ad revenue and the economy and predict no improvements to their bottom lines until the overall economy improves.

Leading the way in cost reductions, as usual, is staff cuts. Most notably cuts will probably be made in newsrooms, resulting in less original content. A new survey showed almost 70 percent of small newspapers cut staff by between 1 and 20 percent, with 49 percent of the papers cutting between 10-19 percent of staff. Staff cuts at 76 percent of big papers were between 1-20 percent with most (54 percent) of papers cutting 10-19 percent of staff.

Despite the cuts, editors continue to say strong journalism and a good business model are the keys to survival: “Excellent journalism, strong investment to stay on the cutting edge of technology and aggressive marketing of the product,” said Gage, special projects editor at Journal-World.

Reporters will be expected now to take up the slack. They are expected to write content for print, web, special web sites, television stations the paper might own or be affiliated with, web television and instant news services, packages of brief news stories for Internet subscribers through the day. This in addition to taking her own pictures or video and recording sound, editing pictures and content, posting and uploading for dissemination, fact checking and maybe even page layout.

Editors surveyed said they were already paying the price for the new way of producing news. “I read the stories (in my own paper) today and I see more holes, questions I want answered that are not,” lamented one editor. “I see more stories…that aren’t as well sourced as I prefer.”

So, is this the journalism we prefer? Is this acceptable? Will strong journalism be sacrificed to immediate 24/7 news that might not be true and/or probably doesn’t probe into the nuances that would make the story more clear? I’m afraid so. I’m hoping someone can provide glimmers of hope for the lowly journalist.

Something stinks in bloggerland

I didn't get invited to the Netroots Nation conference. I guess I'm not influential enough: I haven't raised any money for any politician on my blogging site. Nor have I endorsed any particular candidate for any office. It seems to me there is something rather incestuous about political campaigners wooing bloggers and bloggers making themselves available to be wooed by them. Obviously, bloggers have proven they can accomplish serious online fundraising and that makes them a target, which is why campaigners (Democrat and Republican and any other party for that matter) are seeking them out.

However, if political bloggers claim they should be given the same status as mainstream press and allowed access to meetings and other events just like the mainstream press and they want to have the same legal protections in the courts of law, then partisan politics and fundraising doesn't help their cause, it doesn't make them look like impartial media. They claim they are just giving another side of the news, political or other news, than the mainstream press that otherwise would not get out there. That's all well and good, and probably true. However, if the blogging nation wants to be seen as rising above politics and being known, like the press, as watchdogs over the government realm, then this kind of elbow rubbing is the wrong way to do it. Bloggers are seeking both to be considered as the press but not be tied by the same restrictions as the press. They can't have it both ways.

A true press is not affiliated with a party or politician and doesn't purport to take a position on any issue. Mainstream press plays a mediator of or funnel through which information flows for the public. If bloggers think they can do a better job, then hobnobbing with politicians certainly gives an opposite perception. Raising funds for politicians seems to not be what a press is all about, not even an alternative press.

At the Netroots Nation conference, a democratic contender for the Kentucky Senate provided a "Something Stinks in Washington" air freshener for conference goodie bags. It seems something stinks in bloggerland as well.

Microsoft doth protest too much

It seems to be so easy to talk out of two sides of your mouth when you're making billions of dollars. There is something just slightly disengenous about Microsoft's complaints at the hearings on a proposed advertising hook up between Yahoo and Google. For Microsoft to say on Tuesday that the Yahoo/Google combo as "anti-competitive" when they have done so much to crush competition and create as much of a monopoly as they can is outrageous. Then on Wednesday they are meeting with AOL/Time Warner in an effort to ward off Carl Icahn by making another big monopoly. And they have the nerve to call Carl Icahn (whom I totally hate for what he did to the airline industry) an agitator. This is all such maneuvering, it's impossible to fathom.

Who does Microsft think it is fooling? Just be honest and quit crying anti competitive when you practically wrote the book on it.

Opt in or out for web tracking organizations

Well, I am relieved someone is looking out for those of us on the web. According to WSJ, Rep. Edward Markey (D., Mass.) is saying we need to allow customers to consent to have our online activities on the tracked. I agree with him. I'd like some say in whether or not I want to be a part of someone's data collection. We already have the mechanisms in place for opting in for telephone and cable hook ups. It's time we stop giving away all our information and stop having Big Brother advertisers watching us all the time.

Fighting fire with information

What's happening with the California fires is horrible, but there is a wonderful story out of Big Sur. Here's a good way the digital world is having an immediate impact to make lives better. It's prophetic, I think of the way we will communicate on a community level when some major disaster occurs.
While what this site is doing is very altruistic and community minded, what the web site's very existence raises, however, is a question of the digital divide. What about those who can't afford to have access to a computer, Blackberry, telephone or other digital device? Does this kind of communicating still give power to the few who have the tools?
What do we do about making today's technology available to everyone? Should access to the Internet be a right?

Privacy? What privacy?

I don’t understand a lot about technology, with terms like IP addresses and cookies and what all is included in them. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out a federal judge has misapplied the privacy laws in requiring Google to hand over its database of YouTube users.

We who use the internet should know that nothing we do is private while on it. However, there are privacy laws that restrict who can get at that information. For the judge to rule that Google has to turn over to Viacom every YouTube user, user name and IP address with every video clip he/she ever viewed in order for Viacom to prove a point is an invasion of privacy and further erodes our privacy in our homes.

The Supreme Court, many years ago, ruled a person can view porn in the privacy of one’s own home, so should anyone be allowed to view magazines, internet, television, newspapers or any medium in the privacy of one’s home. It’s nobody’s business what I do in my own home, what I subscribe to or who I listen to. It’s like telling the New York Times to hand over its subscriber database to the Detroit Free Press. (I don’t think they’re owned by the same company, but I’m not sure about that.) Anyone who believes Viacom is going to use the information “exclusively for the purpose of proving our case…” well, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. If I want the competitor to know I’m shopping around for another provider, I’ll let them know.

Chinese bloggers score victory

Well, it worked. The worldwide publicity generated by the Chinese bloggers forced the sacking of an official for "severe malfeasance." While the party line is that the local officials screwed up, the blogging world really made it happen. That the officer will probably get replaced by someone either more inept or more controlling and oppressive remains to be seen.

Granted, this kind of story needs to be vetted to find out who really did what, to see if the accusations of the bloggers are real or if the bloggers are playing vigilante. But when there's an oppressive regime, the benefit of the doubt will always go to the oppressed, at least for me.

While I applaud the persistence of those rebelling against the regime, in general, this kind of wide open world could be dangerous for anyone who does something in public. Context is taken out of the whole situation. Actions might speak louder than words, but it's like being a referee in a basketball or soccer or most other sports. It is usually an action in retaliation to a provocation that gets caught by referees. The one punished usually didn't start it.

Just so with the world wide web and media technology. We don't know the whole story most of the time. We don't know both sides.

The whole world is watching

For those of us who remember the riots of the 1960s, we also remember the chant "The whole world is watching" reminding American politicians and administrations they couldn't hide police brutality towards rioting students. There was some citizen reporting that complemented media reporting, but without the instant technology we now have.

Here's what's good about the new media tools: They keep that chant relevant. The whole world is watching China while China fights to bolster its image for the Olympics. No matter how they try, the Chinese government can't keep their own brutality from being seen by the world. Bloggers are learning how to get around the government censors by blogging backwards, upside down, and any other way to get the story out.

It's not only wonderful there are people willing to risk detention and possibly their lives to get stories of oppressive government to the rest of the world, it's also great that mainstream media picks it up and broadcasts it.

When all voice are heard, more democratic ideals can be implemented. Maybe, just maybe, peace can be spread.

Gotcha!

The Gatorade Ball girl is just one of the problems I have with this new media. The Wall Street Journal is telling us it's a hoax, made up by an ad agency that didn't make the cut. Somehow it got onto blogging sites and it's become a sensation. If it is true, that it is a hoax, it's a sad day for new media and points to how easily anything can be manipulated and yet be a shot heard round the world and perceived as true within an instant.

Why do we let ourselves be fooled by things like this? If I had seen that on a picture in the newspaper or on television, I would have believed it. We've gotten so good at tricking the audience, we don't know what the truth is anymore.

Sad.

Google puts on goggles

With Google's announcement they are getting into the web counting business for advertisers, our privacy is being invaded yet again. The worst part is they won't be charging the advertisers for this service. Maybe we should be used to having every stroke on our keyboard being measured and recorded. But I'm not. I'm glad people are already deleting their cookies but that is hard to remember to do after each site visit.

The move is a deeper intrusion into not only our buying habits, our grazing habits and our personal information such as age, gender and income. Advertisers should be wary of someone who you are spending your money with telling you how and where to spend it. Google is moving to the adviser role and that could be dangerous for monopolistic reasons.

It also ignores the web site visitor. Pass the savings onto the consumers at the site. Give incentives to consumers for visiting a site! Problem is, then advertisers wouldn't trust the data they were getting because they wouldn't know whether the visitor came for their company or for Google.

Divided they fall

The 2008 Journalist Survey, conducted by the Pew project for excellence in Journalism and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, indicates a growing divide in the news industry. http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/2008/journalist%20report%202008.pdf?cat=2&media-3

It’s not, as in years past, that journalists are resisting the expansion of the Web. It’s not that journalists see bloggers taking over the role of journalism and diminishing the values at the same time. It's not that consumers have more options on how to get their news.

What journalists see as the crisis in the industry is the influence of economics: staffing cuts in the newsrooms; covering fewer things; and what journalists perceive as a broken economic model.

The real problem for the industry is that their executives don’t agree. The survey shows reporters give their leaders a very different ranking than they give themselves. “Just 12 percent of national reporters and six percent of local gave their leaders a rating of excellent. Over half of executives offered this highest mark about themselves.”

“Even greater divides exist over the influence of corporate owners in story selection. Reporters were five to six times as likely to say that corporate owners had a great deal of influence over coverage versus not a single national executive and 2 percent of local executives.”

Divisions between management and its workers is not new. And, it’s long been known that journalists are a skeptic lot and naturally distrust their employers more than normal. But the spate of corporate takeovers and monopolies in the industry has amplified that division. The sacredness of the bottom line is in direct conflict with the sacredness of journalistic values and serving the public.

If the public is going to be served by the efforts of the news media in the way the media purports to want to serve the public, then management and worker bees better find ways not only to bridge these emotional divides but work together to bring innovation to their newsrooms that all can be proud of.

Taking WSJ to task

Today's Wall Street Journal has an editorial about the nuclear disclosure provided by North Korea that complains that North Korea hasn't really told us anything about its nuclear endeavors. I wonder why, if the editors have such angst about the lack of disclosure by N. Korea, why didn't they give the story more play.

The main article was on page A7 (sorry, I can't link to it) while the editorial was on page A12. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121452352574509029.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks

Why wasn't the story given better play? Say, instead of the Race and crash demolition derby on page 1, put the nuclear story. Surely, the nuclear story has more importance, especially if the editors deem it necessary to devote hard-earned ink to writing editorials. How about newspapers tell us the news instead of editorializing it? I've found this problem in a lot of smaller, less prestigious newspapers, but I would think WSJ would do better.

If editors care enough to write editorials, the subject matter ought to be about some story they've told us about first. Hiding behind the editorial pages smacks of lack of its own investigative reporting. Here the WSJ did cover it, but I would have expected the story to be on the front page instead of the smash derby story.

AP shift to Web: good or bad?

With the Associated Press shifting more emphasis for Web content as opposed to print media, members who subscribe to the services are becoming disgruntled. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121444598979205887.html) AP is beginning to tell them they have bigger fish to fry and they are shifting their reporters to other venues.

I have long been frustrated by the lack of original reporting in newspapers because everyone seems to be taking the easy way out and running AP stories. Having some AP stories is okay, but when almost every story is an AP story, I’m no longer reading my community newspaper. And when we all are reading the same thing we see on television or hearing the exact same story on radio, it distorts our perception of the story because of the lack of fresh approaches and angles.

If newspapers go back to covering stories on their own, we might get back to a diversified content that gives us a more rounded view of issues. I say, let them go to the Web. If papers put reporters back on the beat that can only be good news for the public.

The media squirmed when it should have reported

The Jena 6 case is a modern day example of how the national media failed in its social responsibilities. According to the American Journalism Review, (Feb/Mar 2008) it started in August 2006 with a black student asking if he could sit under a tree frequented by mostly white students. Nooses were then found hanging from the tree. Students were suspended, but black parents felt they should have been expelled. In November a main building of the school was demolished after a fire was set by someone hoping to destroy records of bad grades, but it added to the racial tensions and was reported by various media that it was connected.

In December 2006 black students beat up a while student and were charged with conspiracy to commit murder. Marches and prayer services and rallies were held from December 2006 through May 2007. In June, one of the six black students was convicted of reduced charges. The remaining five also had their charges reduced to battery. In August 2007, Rev. Al Sharpton visited Jena; Martin Luther King III joined him. In September 2008, an estimated 20,000 people from around the nation hold peaceful rallies.

While two local papers covered the story religiously, and the AP first reported the story in early September 2006, the national papers did not pick up the story until May 20, 2007. CNN didn’t report on the story until June 25, 2008. It wasn’t until August when Rev. Al Sharpton visits that the Washington Post finally starts reporting and the other major news outlets don’t start reporting until September 15, 2008, a full year after the story started.

In its critique of how mainstream media botched the story, Raquel Christie illuminates several systemic issues surrounding today’s media. The criticisms start with the reluctance of major news outlets to cover racial issues because they are not easy. They can’t be covered with a quick and easy just the facts, inverted pyramid reporting. They require time and context, something the media isn’t willing to invest in. The lack of racial diversity in the newsroom is another symptom of the problem. “Journalism is still too white,” remarks Alice Bonner, a University of Maryland journalism professor and former Washington Post journalist.

Part of the problem was the silence of public officials; from the school board to the prosecuting attorney, the lack of “official” perspectives limited balanced reporting. Because of this, the media wound up relying on one person’s version of things: Alan Bean, co-founder and executive director of a grassroots organization designed to create scandals surrounding questionable prosecutions. But even he didn’t start trying to get the message out until April 2007.

But the media is accused of taking the easy way out, using other people’s work, not investigating from a clean slate without supposition, opinions and conclusions. The national media when it did hit, reported erroneously, inconsistently and incomplete reporting leaving out contextual facts (such as why there was an all-white jury). They are also accused of treating the story in a stereotypical manner of racial tensions.

Should it have been a national story or was this local? It is national because race relation problems are the source of much of today’s domestic conflicts, are consistently reported by the black press and conveniently ignored by the white press.

It’s no wonder the public doesn’t trust the media anymore. Mainstream media, to remain relevant, has to do a better job. That will require investments in people and time, things the corporate media offices loathe granting. And it requires a commitment to report on even the issues that make us squirm with shame.

Where have all the stories gone?

“We who wish to preserve the social responsibility functions of the press might do well to turn our attention away from the owners and investors and, instead, look to the people on the front lines who do the daily work of the profession. Whatever form the new journalism takes, it will need a plentiful supply of moral and capable journalists.”*

In a Murdoch media world, we might not see the newspaper anymore, but news will still need to be distributed in some form. What the Murdoch’s of the world need to know is they might cut away at the production of the news and its distribution, but if they cut the quality and chip away at the reason they are there in the first place, they have lost the race.

Part of the angst traditional media have against new media is any regular Joe on the street can capture news, take pictures, upload, feed and distribute it anywhere in the world. There is an elitist sense that only journalists can fulfill the watch dog role. I don’t buy that because it demeans every single person who has witnessed a story and tries to convince others there’s something wrong with the picture and effect change. However, we do need thoughtful citizen journalists capable of giving audiences perspective.

Igniting activism through informing the public has been the social responsibility role carried out by traditional media. Social responsibility is one of the key tenets of journalism. However current media seem to be unable to hold the torch up high, which gave rise to the citizen journalist. Nature abhors a vacuum. Traditional media, said citizen journalists, were so busy chasing O.J. Simpson and other stories, so busy cow-towing to the Bush administration to see through the lies and so busy making themselves the center of the news, they forgot what they were there for.

There have always been citizen journalists but they have taken their story to the mainstream press and either had the story taken from them or had it buried, never to see the light of day. What is happening now is the citizen doesn’t need the media to spread the word.

In steps the citizen journalist who not only tells the story but demands to know where was mainstream press? Why hasn’t this made front page news? Why aren’t we enraged over this abuse of power/rights/money/sex whatever? Meyer and others say that this new citizen journalist who can also take control of production and distribution will eat the traditional newspaper’s lunch. How he thinks traditional media will survive is if it finds a way of using its reputation and influence to take back of the sense of community and social responsibility by embracing technology.

The old media that survive are those who harness their good will-their influence and reputation-in a cost efficient structure without sacrificing the reputation for accuracy. I hope we meet the challenge. Someone will, that’s all that matters.

Meyer, Phillip. The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Information Age. 2004. University of Missouri Press, Columbia and London. p. 227.

Is there life after hope?

I read with some discomfort the article in the Wall Street Journal about retirees who have taken up blogging ("Put it in writing" by Ronni Bennett 6/14/08 (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121259672013845371.html)) and I cringed in sudden familiarity with the segment of the population to which I am sliding into and becoming what she calls an "elderblogger." Oh, God, she's talking about me!

Is it worse or better that the esteemed WSJ is turning its eyes towards this demographic that might not make it through the digital world without its help.

Although she writes that blogging can be an antidote to loneliness, she does list some bloggers who have other reasons such as learning something about yourself, vacations, humor and public policy.

I just wonder if I'm more comfortable with my self in a solitary mode than most people. I can't ever say I've been lonely in my heart. That's not to say that I would never be lonely. Most people go through that stage at least one point or other in their lives. When my husband and my son and my nine siblings die, maybe I'll be lonely, too.

This new way of communicating (not so new, maybe five years old or longer) might be opening up new avenues for us to express ourselves in ways we've not found available before. Yes, we've written journals and diaries for years and years, but what's the point if no one reads them, right. Not that anyone is reading this. But I wonder why the writer says blogging has helped her form more friendships, have deeper more personal connections than we do with our real world friends. Is that the same phenomenon as being much more open to a complete stranger than to someone you know.

I worry about the Internet being the medium through which we make connections, deeper connections if you ask Bennett. It seems counterintuitive, as she says. I worry enough that we spend too much time texting and talking through computers to another person barely a room away. What is happening to talking face to face?

For the aging, (the really aging ones, not me) loneliness is an issue and if the Internet can help relieve loneliness then I'm all for it. But blogging seems like sticking a message in a bottle and setting it out to sea and hope a message comes back to you. What is it about our human need to reach out, no matter what the medium and even if no one sends a message back. Is there life after hope?

Not Dead Yet

Okay. Forbes magazine has given newspapers the kiss of death by including the industry in a listing of the top ten fastest dying industries. They culled their information from the research firm IBISWorld. For the period ending 2012, this research firm projects newspapers will experience a 10.5 percent decline in employment, 10.5 percent in revenue and 11.5 percent in output.

But wait, there’s hope for me! Journalism isn’t going to die anytime soon! My husband will be happy I can stay employed for the next 10-15 years while he retires early. This is why I started this blog: so I have some familiarity with digital media to keep me “relevant” and employable for years to come. Because I love what I’m doing. I just have to learn more about being a mobile journalist with digital equipment from digital recorders and microphones to digital cameras hanging off both aging shoulders. And then I have to know how to get it all posted from my home computer. Won’t the publishers love me!

But are physical newspapers dead? I don’t know. The auto industry is seeing significant declines, but has the car disappeared? Not so fast. Newspapers have been around a whole lot longer than cars. Perhaps we diehards that need our physical newspaper can keep up the demand and refuse to leave our papers the same way Americans refuse to leave their cars.

Newspapers, I think, will just maintain their presence as one of the many mediums through which we the people will be able to choose to receive our news. I still like the idea of my news being filtered through an editor to make sure a story is balanced, that I read about both sides. I still want coverage of both sides in more than 10-second sound bites or one-sided blogs.

No doubt the Internet has raised our knowledge of the world exponentially. There is now so much at our fingertips. And that, to me, is one of the problems. There’s so much at our fingertips how do we know what’s credible? What’s real? What source is reliable?

That’s what editors have been doing for years. So I’ll stick with the newspapers that I can hold in my hand and continue to make those physiological connections that have etched neural pathways as deep as the Grand Canyon upon my brain.

They shoot horses don’t they?

From pancake people to horses. The metaphors are piling up (no pun intended.) Jeffrey Bezos, chairman, president and chief executive of Amazom.com, Inc. talked about changing reading behavior in an interview with Wall Street Journal’s techie Mr. Mossberg. Mossberg interviewed several well-known uber-techies in the All Things Digital special section of Monday’s WSJ. In “The Way We Read,” Bezos talks about the electronic book device called Kindle being marketed (Where? They don’t have any around here) worldwide.

Mossberg asks if books are going to be facing a decline in people needing the physical, tactile touch of books and newspapers. Bezos responds: “Over some time horizon, books will be read on electronic devices. Physical books won’t completely go away, just as horses haven’t completely gone away. … It’s very hard to find a technology that has remained in mostly the same form for 500 years. And anything that has stubbornly resisted improvement for 500 years is going to be hard to improve.”

When Mossberg asks about the “people who talk about the tactile feel of the book – the hard to describe intangibles around reading a paper book that you lose on an electronic device,” Bezos responds: “I’m sure people love their horses, too. But you’re not going to keep riding your horse to work just because you love your horse.”

In another article in the same All things Digital section, Rupert Murdoch speculates on the future of the printed newspaper. “…over the last 10 or 15 years, they have made every economy possible in production, with computers and so on, but not in journalism. Now they have to turn to journalism and they are going to deteriorate tremendously.”

What we need is a rebellion. Am I so far left behind that I can’t see the writing for the horses a..? Murdoch goes on to say papers might last another twenty or thirty years, but there is a huge opportunity for a paper for the 10 percent most influential, most affluent, best educated people in the community.” It’s all going on the Web, according to Murdoch.

I just can’t see myself getting all my reading the news solely on an electronic device. I don’t want to carry a Kindle in my bag as I commute back and forth to work. I don’t want to prop myself up in my bed (my husband calls the set up a throne) and dump a Kindle on my chest or belly and read from it. So what if I can download a gazillion books? I only need one, the one I’m reading. Besides what would I do with all the space now taken up by my bedside book piles?

As a member of the market segment that is going to be the majority of the population (at least in the U.S.) within the next ten years, I say companies have to wake up to the demographics and keep on providing and improving upon the technologies that got them where they are today and not dispose of them like a horse, put out to pasture and called only when someone wants to pet it. I don’t know about any of you, but I will keep demanding what suits me physically – for my eyes and hands to partake when I want to be comfortable, not seated at a computer. I will be the horse that stubbornly resists for the next 500 years. Do they call that a mule? Okay, I’m a mule. Join me as we stand our ground.

A question for our times

A question for our times

“Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet it doing to our brains” by Nicholas Carr is a fascinating articulation of what many of us have dreaded about the digital age. It’s why many of us purist readers who need to hold the newspaper or book in our hands have dreaded the onslaught of the Internet. The article is printed in the July/August 2008 issue of The Atlantic Monthly.

Whether you agree or not with the concerns, as journalists and other professionals responsible for the dissemination of information, we would be wise to look at how the Internet is changing the way we process information.

Maybe I’m just old fashioned, but as a reporter covering education and government, I have harbored the same concerns about what the Internet is doing to the way we process information. There’s just too much of it! And how do we put it all in context?

In the article, Carr says, “And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles.” He cites Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist, and others’ concerns that the “media or other technology we use in learning to read play an important part in shaping the neural circuits inside our brains.”

And I thought it was just me! I thought the chipping away of my capacity for concentration and contemplation was just a sign of my advancing age!

Educators in the schools that I cover today are beginning to question why they should invest in teaching the alphabet, or even teaching handwriting to kindergarten and first graders, when it is assumed by most that everything will be done on a computer. So why invest the time and staff? Teach them keyboarding as early as possible! Parents are actually complaining that handwriting and spelling and all those skills are unnecessary for tomorrow’s workforce and are a waste of taxpayer money.

Carr concludes with a frightening picture of society: that we will be so overloaded with snippets of information (whether important or not) “we risk turning into pancake people – spread wide and thin as we connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button.”

We see it already in the media. The 30 second sound bite or video shot is now the 10 second sound bite or video. The 20 inch story is now the 10 inch story, with bigger pictures. We are losing our ability to focus our thought.

I also worry that with this inability to focus and the modification of our neural circuitry, we lose the ability to put things in the context of memory, allow our imaginations to make associations and allow us to reflect upon how those words are affecting us, allowing us to feel our emotions.

This is what worries me most: Is the instant and constant information creating a society unable to connect to ourselves and one another emotionally? Will the removal of our tactile senses by reading on a computer screen and writing using the keyboard strip away part of our very humanity?

Atlantic Monthly Article

I'll be writing about the article in the just released Atlantic Monthly magazine entitled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" I hope to share some insights with all of you.