Re:My master plan for revolutionizing the future of publishing
by sdoering on Thursday December 13, 2012 @03:05AM
(#4914834)
Well the barriers of entry in respect to publishing my be lower today. But in terms of generating interesting content, they may be as high as ever.
For example, it just costs a ton of money to have really good people in every part of the world - not only to get the "news" or the pictures, but to reflect, to comment, to understand the relevant, cultural contexts - and to be able to communicate this in terms of intended target audience.
This form of journalism (as one example of publishing) is expensive. It was financed by the ads and subscriptions in times of printing on dead wood. And modern publishers try more and more, to outsource this to news-agencies - but with this outsourcing, everybody got the same dry content.
This is less and less working in print-journalism and it is even less working in digital-publishing.
If twitter - or some regional blog is better in explaining the happenings in, let's say: Egypt, why should I pay my local paper to deliver crap for the dustbin?
And then, it happens more and more, that (at least here in Germany), that the local content is getting worse. So their core-business, reporting and giving context on local things, is done in a bad way.
I am not willing to pay for a product, that treats its customers like crap.
The problem is, that the people (journalists) inside these organisations feel entitled to something, because
a, it was done that way all the time, they can remember
b, they are protected by the constitution and they really feel, they are doing a job, that is essential in keeping democracy alive (what the imho are really not doing anymore)
So as these people are really quite resilient to change (and to changing their ways), they cannot see the road ahead, they are blinded by their own worldview.
So probably, they have to go down - and I'm not sad to see them go. But I really fear what comes with these gone. Yes there will be some form of (good) journalism to emerge - but the time in between might be quite "interesting", as political players may feel like doing what they want, with the (pseudo-)watchdogs gone.
For example, it just costs a ton of money to have really good people in every part of the world - not only to get the "news" or the pictures, but to reflect, to comment, to understand the relevant, cultural contexts - and to be able to communicate this in terms of intended target audience.
This form of journalism (as one example of publishing) is expensive. It was financed by the ads and subscriptions in times of printing on dead wood. And modern publishers try more and more, to outsource this to news-agencies - but with this outsourcing, everybody got the same dry content.
This is less and less working in print-journalism and it is even less working in digital-publishing.
If twitter - or some regional blog is better in explaining the happenings in, let's say: Egypt, why should I pay my local paper to deliver crap for the dustbin?
And then, it happens more and more, that (at least here in Germany), that the local content is getting worse. So their core-business, reporting and giving context on local things, is done in a bad way.
I am not willing to pay for a product, that treats its customers like crap.
The problem is, that the people (journalists) inside these organisations feel entitled to something, because a, it was done that way all the time, they can remember b, they are protected by the constitution and they really feel, they are doing a job, that is essential in keeping democracy alive (what the imho are really not doing anymore)
So as these people are really quite resilient to change (and to changing their ways), they cannot see the road ahead, they are blinded by their own worldview.
So probably, they have to go down - and I'm not sad to see them go. But I really fear what comes with these gone. Yes there will be some form of (good) journalism to emerge - but the time in between might be quite "interesting", as political players may feel like doing what they want, with the (pseudo-)watchdogs gone.