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Coach, gym members shockedSan Bernardino Sun, CA -Feb 1, 2008Among the tough martial arts students Peter Sabala Jr. spent time with, he…

Have a look at Mass Niche, my another writing(book?) work at http://www.paragraphr.com/pages/show/11, especially ‘Rise of online fashion boutiques’. It is about ‘That’s not fashion’ outgrowing ‘real fashion’.

“Right now the mismatch between the social mission of journalism and the market support for that mission seems to be growing, so I think we should explore other means of support for serious journalism.”

Yes and no.

Yes, in that sometimes market forces don’t act in the interest of the public good– the idealistic potential of media. Witness Murdoch’s brilliant media strategy and his mind-numbing sensationalist rags. They fill a popular need for mythical archetypes and good guys vs. villains but they are not an effective source of objective information. The private Knight Foundation is hugely important to supporting growth in journalism. PBS, NPR, BBC and government-financed media in democratic nations (i.e. NOT Egypt, NOT Saudi Arabia) have a pretty good track record. And who’s not to say that independent, commercial media organizations (FOX) aren’t in bed with specific political affiliations? (Though the skepticism is healthy.)

No to Lemman in that serious journalism does not necessarily equal “traditional” journalism, and there is no need to drag our heels to try to slow an irreversible tide change. Journalism is evolving, and the new media vs. old media divide is counterproductive; an effective Fourth Estate will embrace elements associated with both. It would be more useful to focus on reality–how people really get their news today– because this is rapidly changing. My college-age sister has never purchased a print newspaper (picked up free dailies and The Onion, yes). Newspaper publishers will do well to observe what happened to music publishers: try to stop a paradigm shift in the consumer behavior of millions, try to enforce an obsolete business model, and you will fail.

Why not support serious journalism for a changing media landscape? Imagine if the US government supported “serious” but innovative news efforts online? (Sorry Perez and Denton.) Global Voices, citizen journalism, participatory media, etc. Talk about a force for the free exchange of information– and a true check on the government’s influence.

Military-Industrial-Media complex. Look it up. Better yet, look at it. It’s in your own backyard.

The website is simply a more convenient version of the newspaper - one less packet of newsprint does not mean one less reader. The paper version might pack in more ads (and they are not filtered out by Adblock Plus), so revenue per subscriber might be less online, but this is a problem of how to make ads tolerable, not a problem of decreasing readership.

Blogs are great at swarming a special event with coverage - major news events like Hurricane Katrina, SF Bay oil spill, etc. The information comes in sooner and in far more detail, especially photos. For niche interests like trade shows, blogs go far deeper than other media. However, in many cases, blogs are just somebody’s opinion, or personal experience reported as though their first impression is the whole story. Or worse, a link to somebody else’s story tagged with their opinion. For large-scale news stories with diffuse impact, like global politics or economic issues, the blogosphere seems more like a tool for keeping big media honest than a meaningful engine for reporting the big picture, unless you spend all day reading feeds and act as your own editor.

It is true that in Europe a lot of daily newspapers were born out of the propaganda machine of political groups (later parties) way back in the 18th an 19th century and that in some cases you can still sense the political “background” of some newspapers.

Here in Belgium almost all newspapers were born out of political struggle. However, the quality of their reporting is so high and their bias so limited that you can refer to them as “independent” newspapers.

I think that in principle, a government should stay out of any kind of medium (be it press, TV, Radio) but that the day to day reality of private and state owned media is here to stay…

And let’s face it, we all know that in the US Fox is as good as the government’s news channel and that some newspapers are so biased that their reporting has to be taken with a serious pinch of salt…

A more interesting phenomenon is the creation of a citizen journalism school by the founders of OhMyNews… but then we’re into another debate of course…

Kind regards from Brussels.

Many papers and TV stations have pitifully poor design, and accessibility/ease-of-use (i.e. navigation, etc.) hasn’t been updated since the site was created (sometimes, 10 years ago). Most also also have not bothered to hire anyone with any grasp of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), so perhaps their long-tail potential would be greatly diminished. Now, I’m basing that on the dozens I’ve seen, but I’d wager that it’s a fair characterization.

If your paper had the right folks on staff to fully optimize the hundreds, or thousands, of stories in your archive. Well. Your boss would probably wonder why he/she hadn’t done this sooner.

And if there is no ad inventory, simply fill up the slots with AdSense or Yahoo! ads. A few cents a click, a few cents CPM, multiplied by thousands of well-optimized pages generating significant organic (i.e. FREE) traffic….and you’ve got a business that can survive — even thrive.

I run a few fairly popular blogs, and I often link to news stories on local news websites. I find that after a few weeks, those links go dead because the stories have been removed. Over the course of a few years, you’re talking about many thousands of stories that are no longer available, which destroys the amount of traffic going to the site.

Any clue why they all seem to do this? <<

I work at a newspaper website and have fought for this and lost. We can’t sell enough ads as it is now with our inventory of 14 days of stories. My boss says we can make more money selling the stories out of the pay archives than making them free.

I thought that the geniuses at Davos were supposed to be saving the world, but apparently this includes finding a way to “save” journalism. If you are one of the few people who is reading the newspaper instead of the blogosphere, you never …

1) Libraries will continue to purchase print, microfilm, and electronic database access for “the long tail.” It’s why we exist. It’s what we do. Anybody who rolled their eyes or thought “fuddy-duddies with buns” upon hearing the word “library” clearly hasn’t been to one or used one lately - librarians are just as concerned about preserving access to information, esp. as the world continues to become more technologically complex.

2) So long as we have a generation of people who take pleasure in opening up a physical newspaper and reading it with the morning coffee or evening gin and tonic (perhaps spending some time over the crossword puzzle as they munch a bagel on a sunny Sunday), print will exist. It may not thrive, but until we have a nation of folks to whom a slow, rich, meaningful life is important, print will hang on. Squinting at the screen just doesn’t cut it for me, and I’m a technogeek deluxe (though I am one of those folks over thirty you aren’t supposed to trust).

Just my two cents.

Great posting from Davos, Mike. I appreciate you, Scoble, and Loic sharing with all of us.

Not sure I follow you on how charging for below market rates on advertising is illegal. If I set up a blog right now and wanted to charge .01 cpm, I could do it. If I started a new newspaper and wanted to give away free advertising, I could do it. Craigslist would be the first company to get sued.
There is a big difference between a company specifically going after another company by reducing their rates and a company being smart about how they start their business.

And “Free” is a business model. Google allows us to search the internet for free, Facebook and Myspace allow us to setup profiles for Free, TechCrunch allows us to read their content for free. Free is good because it makes the marketplace more efficient and benefits consumers and not big business. None of these companies made money when they started out. A lot of the work in the beginning was done for “Free.”

Journalism is such a great trade (not a profession), because nobody can define it. And, frankly, the First Amendment wasn’t written to protect a codified set of principles that place facts above argument. Besides, what exactly ARE facts anyway?

Welcome to the participatory culture.