
Roger Ebert: Celebrity culture is infantilizing us. We are being trained not to think. - makimaki
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/11/death_to_film_critics_long_liv.html
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mechanical_fish
I agree with Ebert's points, but I would put it differently: People who
_persist in reading newspapers_ are being trained not to think. There are
fewer and fewer such people, because newspapers have long since abandoned the
thinking person's market.

Fortunately, this isn't the early 1990s anymore. If I want to read (e.g.)
Roger Ebert I don't need to force my local paper to carry him.

~~~
zitterbewegung
What is supposed to replace newspapers?

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mynameishere
Websites, of course. The real question is "What is supposed to replace
advertising" because web advertising doesn't work very well. My guess: Rich
non-media people like George Soros will bankroll news organizations. This
already happens with some small political magazines.

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fallentimes
Keep in mind though, gossip sites like perezhilton make close to $1,000,000
per month.

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mynameishere
Keep in mind that pornography is a 97 billion dollar international business.
[1]. A dollar is a dollar is a dollar, yes? And yet, one reader of Commentary
magazine is worth a million listeners of Howard Stern.

[1] <http://www.editmymovies.com/pornography_statistics.html>

~~~
fallentimes
I could spend an hour on that stat page.

I think the same type of people that only read newspapers won't migrate to
anything better on the internet.

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unalone
I always thought Ebert was too lenient on movies (as he famously says, he goes
to movies to enjoy them; I've always liked more critical film reviewers), but
I've loved every article he's written for the Sun. It's made me appreciate his
attitude a lot more.

In particular, his criticism for how the press handled Twilight. I lost my
love for newspapers through 2006-2007 with their handling of the book series.
If you haven't read them, the books are _disgustingly_ bad; high schoolers
have a better track record in terms of quality. And newspapers and "old media"
never once referred to it. They'd focus only on the popularity and on the many
people who liked it, which was a really self-serving story.

I really hope people start speaking up against that sort of news reporting.
It's killing the news. And I think that old news is going to end up dead as
the Internet gains prominent, but god - what an ugly death.

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markessien
Newspapers no longer have monopoly on information, and since educated
consumers are increasingly searching out alternative information sources on
the web, newspapers have to concentrate on the casual reader. And the casual
reader is interested in celebrity - it has always been that way, and it will
always be that way. It's not making us dumb, humans have always wanted to know
about their queens and aristocracy.

Challenging material, or material that only appeals to some upper crust 10% is
going to move to a medium where only the 10% who are interested in it get to
see it. A mass paper needs to appeal to the masses, this not only makes
commercial sense, but it's logically right. If some guy has no interest in
some massive review of a huge book written in big words he does not know, then
why should this review be in his paper?

Being average is a good thing, and specialists should not complain that the
average people are no longer interested in what they have to say. Instead,
they should focus on the people who are actually interested in them.

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brandnewlow
Business idea: A daily subscription-only film review e-mail written by a
collection of recently laid-off movie reviewers.

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newt0311
In all fairness, while most newspapers may be devolving into gossip columns,
some of them still strive to maintain some dignity like WSJ, NYT, etc...

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raphar
I learnt about the incomming subprime crisis not from those newspapers. I was
from economic blogs and it was more than a year ago. Dont you think newspapers
have lost some of its usefullness, if they cant see these kind of events
coming?

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david927
Or we're finding out how useless they were all along. The web allows us to dig
for what -we- find important; -we- become the editors. And that will keep
stupid people stupid, but allow smart people to become much smarter.

