
Why the mainstream media is dying - ksvs
http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/11/why-mainstream-media-is-dying.html
======
jakarta
The problem to me is that most media outlets are still populated with J-school
grads when they should be housed with experts.

That's why blogs are winning, because you can go straight to these people with
laser focused insights that you just can't get from a j-school grad. In the
past, journalists would have to go to experts for comments and structure
stories around that, now with blogs you get to cut out the middle man.

A lot of the good reporting I saw over the last year has come from experts.
Nate Silver at Five Thirty Eight was able to generate some really great
analysis on election polls.

The crew at CalculatedRisk gave reported on the mortgage industry and
financial crisis better than most mainstream outlets. Actually, Tanta over
there used to have to regularly correct Gretchen Morgenson, one of the senior
writers at the NYT.

With war reporting, Andrew Exum at AbuMuqawama was really really great on
issues dealing with the Surge/Afghanistan/Iraq. I have to bet that one of the
reasons is because he served as a ranger in Afghanistan and Iraq and then got
a masters in COIN and a PhD studying Hezb.

These were instances outside of Tech where I saw some really good reporting. I
think Tech media will always be ahead of everyone just based on the savviness
of their consumers. You can really see that with the absolute embracing of
video podcast programs by the tech crowd whereas in finance we still havent
seen anything close to that for taking out trash like CNBC.

~~~
nir
Does anything in Arrington's background make him better suited to cover
technology than a journalism graduate?

Eventually, each of them has the chance to make himself into an expert in his
field. The journalism grad might also remember some stuff from her studies
such as not to invest in companies operating in the field she covers, verify
with several sources, try to get responses before publishing and so on.

I'd say that blogs are a huge disappointment exactly because they _failed_ to
fulfill the promise of reporting by those who know most. Instead we got
reporting by the those who write most, which tend to be the Scobles and
Arringtons of this world rather than the Cunninghams and Torvalds (Torvaldi?
;).

I think Fake Steve is among the sharpest commentator on this space, but he's
completely wrong here, suggesting TC > NYT because something they threw out
against the wall managed to stay stuck.

~~~
InclinedPlane
"Does anything in Arrington's background make him better suited to cover
technology than a journalism graduate?"

Demonstrably yes. The entire J-school educated mainstream media has had the
opportunity to do the story that Arrington has done, and yet they have failed.
He has done the work that they have not, and done it well. By those
credentials, among his other work, he has proven his suitability to cover
technology.

Blogs are not yet a replacement for all of mainstream media, but that is to be
expected. Blogs are young, and profitable blogs younger yet (5-10 years at
best), whereas the mainstream media is still a multibillion dollar centuries
old institution. The fact that blogs are any competition whatsoever to the
mainstream media is a shocking condemnation of the current state of mainstream
journalism.

~~~
patio11
_The entire J-school educated mainstream media has had the opportunity to do
the story that Arrington has done, and yet they have failed._

I think this bears repeating. "A hot new fad sweeping the nation is deceiving
your children and scamming customers for well in excess of $100 million per
year" doesn't sound out of the purview of the NYT, does it? Instead of doing
the ground pounding to shake out a story like that, they mainly get a press
release from someone, open the Rolodex and find one of the usual suspects to
give a punchy opposing quote for balance, and then publish it.

~~~
nir
I think you're both reading way too much into the fact TechCrunch did a better
job on this story than NYT. It's not unusual that some reporter will find or
dig deep enough into a story that others hadn't. It doesn't prove _that_ much.

The Drudge Report broke the Monica Lewinsky story, which nearly cost a US
President his job - does this mean The Drudge Report is a better news source
than the NY Times?

~~~
InclinedPlane
The point of the article is that this is a specific example of a larger trend.
Have you ever noticed that when the mainstream media covers some science or
technology field you happen to have expertise in the coverage is always
incredibly shallow and contains several glaring errors? You perhaps labor
under the assumption that all of the rest of the media's coverage of subjects
you have less independent knowledge of is unbiased, accurate, and thorough.
What evidence do you have to support that assumption?

In truth there is very little _reporting_ in the mainstream media these days.
Most media conglomerates rest on the advantages of access and consumer
inertia. The big papers would rather "report" on their content-free,
uncritical exclusive interview with a major figure than actually do the
grubby, uninteresting behind the scenes grunt work to break legitimate news.

------
ujnubub
A better example would have been the recent Air France crash off Brazil. While
the real news outlets (even the BBC) are showing pretty graphics, reporting
other reporters fabricated stories as 'sources' and making stupid technical
goofs (the black box doesn't send messages to a GPS satelite)

Blogs like aviation safety network and askthepilot are reporting comments from
people that fly the same type on the same route, designed the black box in use
and serviced the exact aircraft in question.

------
jcromartie
It boils down to this: no more hard news.

Mainstream media simply repeats talking points and soundbites. I was reminded
of the stark difference between mainstream media and "real news" when I heard
an _anchor_ on NPR actually _correcting_ some Republican legislator's
ramblings about socialized medicine. I was shocked. It was as if I had just
heard a kid talk back to his parents or something. Then, of course, I realized
that this is how journalists are _supposed_ to behave. CNN and MSNBC just
"leave it there" after some blowhard spouts off a slew of factual errors.

------
mattlanger
I'm all for expecting due diligence from traditional media, but saying they're
dying because Michael Arrington provided more exhaustive details for his very
particular and specialized audience while the Times ran a puff piece for a
much more generalized audience seems a little petty on Fake Steve's part.

Seriously. This is the same newspaper that helped legitimize a war by running
Judith Miller bylines above the fold.

Mountains. Molehills.

~~~
nl
You're missing the point of what Fake Steve is saying. Puff pieces don't work
as often anymore because they rely on people not having good access to better
(non-puff) reporting.

If someone cares enough about something to read a puff-piece then they
probably are going to care enough to read properly informative stories.

Increasingly, in all field (from celebrity gossip to finance to politics) you
can get expert reporting from people who write well and know what they are
talking about - and they provide real insights, not puff.

Forest. Trees.

~~~
mattlanger
I don't see these two roles being mutually exclusive, nor do I see your
statement to be a given ("if someone cares enough...").

The experience of sitting down with a Sunday paper is very different from that
of reading a specialized outlet with a specifically targeted audience. The
Sunday paper is a curated aggregator. Nine in ten stories (and probably much
more than that) relate to subjects I _don't_ have very specific knowledge of,
and I'd be lost if I tried to keep up with reporting that expected significant
topical familiarity.

------
greyman
Mainstream media is not dying.

The article proved that in one case, Techcrunch reported substantially better
than New York Times. But it should be mentioned, that 1) this is not always
the case, and 2) Technology is only a small part of what mainstream media
cover.

Also, in my opinion, Techcrunch is not a blog in the traditional sense of that
word. Yes, it uses blogging software and sorts its articles chronologically,
but it is actually an Internet media company with professional staff, etc.
From certain point of view, TC is mainstream technology media. Overall, this
article proves nothing more that in one particular case, one media performed
better than other.

~~~
unalone
The New York Times is a century and a half old. Techcrunch hasn't even passed
half a decade. Blogging's ten years old. Give it another ten and where do you
think it'll be?

Blogs already cover politics and technology more thoroughly than papers. I'll
bet webcomics are catching up to newspaper funnies in popularity. By 2019,
there won't be anything in newspapers that you can't get better online.

How is TechCrunch not a blog? Are the rules that if you're able to find
advertisers and make money you're not a blog anymore? Because they don't make
a magazine, they don't have print, and they publish exclusively online. That's
exactly what a blog is.

~~~
akkartik
I agree with that sentiment, but beware of directly comparing age. Blogging
will likely rise and fall faster than newspapers.

~~~
unalone
I only half agree. What we _think_ of as blogging will fall faster, but the
idea of independent electronic publication will stick around longer than
newspapers did. Flexibility trumps everything.

------
mdemare
Is the New York Times dying? I hope not - currently on the first 2 pages of
HN, 9 articles (good articles too, mostly) are from the Times. That's 15%! I'd
hate to do without those.

------
andreyf
This misses the elephant in the room: the majority of the Times article
probably written by a PR firm, not by anyone employed at NYT. I've met several
journalists that say it pretty bluntly - the only place to make a decent
salary for a good journalist is in PR houses and think tanks.

------
blhack
The mainstream media is certainly not _dying_ ; the newspapers, and the
television, however are.

People forget that a newspaper, or a magazine, or a television station aren't
news sources; they're distribution systems.

Every day, I wake up and read things from: The Times Online, New Scientist,
Scientific American, Wired, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal,
Foreign Policy, The Financial Times, and probably more.

The paradigm might be changing shape, but it isn't going to be _that_
different. Websites like this one become new-stands, and the distribution
changes (from papers and trucks to packets and routers), but that is about it.

------
tmsh
i e-mailed this. including it below in case anyone finds it curious.

'of course fake steve jobs is all caught up in the fact that he wrote a semi
decent article for newsweek about this. but the failure at nyt is pretty epic.
i remember reading their article on zynga last week and thinking -- wtf? are
these guys even paying attention to anything? but investigative journalism is
quite different from other types of journalism. but i will say about arrington
that the two big points in his favor were (a) in his original riposte with
shukla, he says in his second mic session, 'this will make good copy'. the
fact that he knew that way back then is a sign that that fool has matured. he
is way ahead of the game compared to any other tech journalist. (b) the video
he found of pincus telling developers that he had scammed in the beginning was
HUGE. forced facebook to force zynga to kill this entire lead-gen industry (or
at least severely modify it). and that, truly, is the benefit of online
journalism. a single journalist at a desk assigned to a single story can't
find those videos. you need the power of hundreds of people reading articles
and collaborating (some dude probably thought to himself -- hmm, wait a
second, i remember i was at that startup talk a couple of years ago...).

on the other hand, the developers, whom fake steve jobs calls scammy or
something -- i don't really think they quite realized the extent of what was
going on. it doesn't shirk their responsibility to see better. but, now we
know. and boy, mainstream media was completely out of the loop of this entire
change in the tech industry. so let's blame them. jk, but the long-term and
short-term benefits of reporting w/ and w/o serious editors is going to be a
bigger and bigger issue.'

------
adrinavarro
I wouldn't say it's "dying". Just being "reconverted", placed in another spot
which is not the same than it used to be. Definitely not going to disappear in
the mid-term.

------
ivenkys
"which makes online games, like FarmVille, that have become incredibly popular
on Facebook among people who are missing parts of their brains."

As an aside no mainstream media would actually use those words , though they
be true.

~~~
rms
Those words aren't true. These games exploit a psychological quirk that most
humans have.

------
patrickgzill
Basically the points that Michael Crichton made back in 1994 in his article
"Mediasaurus" are now coming true.

------
indranil
I don't think mainstream media is dying, it's just becoming more and more
irrelevant.

------
steve_mobs
i don't think blogs are beating regular news outlets because of some sort of
unbias reporting. If blogs had the reach and power as mainstream news outlets
they would suffer from the bias problem as well.

The true reason why blogs are beating regualar newspapers is because
newspapers are trying too hard to win pulitzer prizes. Blogs give the same
information but in a more convienent fashion that allows you to get the main
idea with good commentary in a quick fashion.

So I think it has more to do with form and structure of content.

