Comments on: The High Sheriffs Do Davos

By: n - Swampland - TIME.com

n - Swampland - TIME.com — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:57:32 +0000

[...] a mere 37 years old. (And a boss, I might add, with a slightly seditious streak; he encouraged my frequent barbs at the High [...]

By: davemc321

davemc321 — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 20:33:12 +0000

Highways are managed by governments, state and federal. I don't think you want your news media controlled by the government, Cliff.
.
The problem isn't so much that media are commercial ventures. For decades, the public value of newspapers - comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable - were an important part of the mix. Running in the black was a bonus. With the advent in recent years of the escalation of ownership by large conglomerates, large profit margins - 15 to 20 percent - became the standard. Shareholder interests soon overwhelmed the public good.

By: Cliff

Cliff — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 18:49:10 +0000

Looks like my filthy mouth got me put into KT's Sphere of Deviance. But here's a question on the business end of it anyway:
Highways have never been made into a profitable business (to my knowledge) but we still have them because we still need them.
.
How is an honest media any different? Why should it be slaved to the profit margin when the profit margin has been shown to be so severely harmful to journalism?

By: davemc321

davemc321 — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:19:40 +0000

Oops. Forgot to close out the quoted material. Guess that's why they made editors.

By: davemc321

davemc321 — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:18:33 +0000

Let me go back to something KT wrote: there are a lot fewer or us in this business these days, doing exponentially more work, thanks to the web. we just don't have time any more to make that third or fourth phone call, or delve into that in-depth story that is crying to be written. ... the true specialists have all but disappeared from the newsroom. editors are swamped. errors are going to happen more, not less, not because people are lazy or biased, but because they don't have the time they used to. . In 2008, more than 15,500 journalism jobs vanished. In January 2009 alone, 550+ jobs are gone. . As publishers put more and more resources into digital, the mish-mash of news, opinion, rumor and quick-hit stories will increase dramatically. And there will be fewer and fewer people to do it. The news personnel at the paper where I worked decreased nearly 50 percent over the past five years. That's bodies who walked out the door. When I left, reporters were already expected to file blog items daily in addition to covering their beats or regular assignments. Plans were in place for reporters to also do their own videos for the web. You don't know frustration until you've just left a complicated hearings/trial/police investigation and you have to file four grafs "to the web," RIGHT THEN, though you haven't had time to sort out the pieces or make a phone call. . Whether estimable journalists like KT survive has nothing to do with her skills, her knowledge, her energy or her age. It's how few people do publishers feel they can get away with. The shift to digital news is as much about maximizing profits as entering the Brave New World of news. . There is a call here for journalism to to a better job, and I say, "Amen." And there is a place for 'citizen journalists" to do so(how I hate that term. Reporters are citizens too.) You want journalists to be more thorough, be more fair, be more honest. We can do that. But not alone. And, frankly, a few of you want journalists to talk only to the 'right' people and ignore those liars and charlatans on the other side. Yet we have to talk to the liars and the charlatans to be fair, honest and thorough. . Sorry for the length, but I loved being a reporter and the sense you were actually doing some good in the world. And I hate seeing it collapse ineffectually into itself.

By: wvng

wvng — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:33:21 +0000

The problem, right here at TIME: The entire Republican caucus, we now know, balked anyway. Time's Mark Halperin, naturally, is blaming Obama.

By: wvng

wvng — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:28:33 +0000

Hmmm, I have one comment in moderation, and two with the same you tube link just vanished.
.
Are we in Chile?

By: jarais

jarais — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:00:52 +0000

What time does the self-flagellation seminar start? Sackcloth and ashes optional?

By: wvng

wvng — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:43:35 +0000

By: wvng

wvng — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:40:41 +0000

sgw: more credible bloggers like Josh Marshall many times he will point to something a person left in comments that either got him to thinking about what might be the good subject to a story, or that pointed him towards more information on a story he had already covered, even if that information might refute something he had already posted. --- which is precisely what led to the US Attorney firing story that Carney poopoohed right in these here pages.
.
That is the new model for journalism, and it is a very powerful one.