by Edward Champion

There’s Clearly a Formula Here

  • [insert author name]’s [latest book from author] has hit bookstores. It’s criminally underated, and [reviewer who writes somewhat intelligently or has interesting take] has an interesting take on why it’s worth your time.
  • Last night, I had a [vaguely personal moment in which I don’t reveal too much of myself to readers, because, based on some of the comments here, I think a few of you are keeping extremely close track of my personal life — for what reason I have no idea]. And it reminded me of [article which probably has nothing to do with moment in question].
  • [Person with no real ideas trying to attract attention] is attacking litblogs again! And [first blogger to get upset, because offering you all this content for free can sometimes be a thankless task] has taken him to task. Meanwhile, [more level-headed litblogger who recognizes that this person just wants attention] offers a contrarian take.
  • [Wacky news story]. Hey, how about that! [Insert hastily formed witticism in which I apply an overly literal reading to form an incongruous association.]
  • [A paragraph of polemical bluster, with at least one ad hominem remark or, failing that, a metaphor that grabs your attention.]
  • Sam Tanenhaus has [well, he could have done anything really, if only he actually contacted me directly instead of asking other people about who I am].
  • [Sex joke.]
  • [Something terrible committed by McSweeney’s or an obscure literary quarterly.]
  • And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention [A friend or acquaintance who has done something interesting, must keep this near the end to avoid favoritism]’s thoughtful project, which should blow the lid on [incongruous reference here because I’m overworked and I need more coffee so that I can stay awake, until such moment as I will be able to properly collapse].

And just to be clear on how formulaic this blog is and how much of a tool I am, Random House sends me a $600 weekly paycheck, Penguin arranges for my Fairmont penthouse suite on the weekends, keeping it well-stocked with champagne, caviar and two prostitutes (because I like things exotic, I prefer to fuck midgets and black women), and Soft Skull keeps the Colombian marching power flowing 24/7.

It’s great being a corporate pawn. It’s great willingly catering to the mainstream. Literature? You think I really give a crap? In fact, I’m getting a blow job right now as I write this post. Life doesn’t get any better.

I don’t think you can find anyone more venal in our society than litbloggers.

by Edward Champion

Newspapers Shifting to Paid Content Model?

From MarketWatch:

By putting a price on the Reader, The Times creates another stream of revenue, albeit a small one, to add to what it’s generating from subscriptions to its Times Select service, and sales of archived articles. Piece by piece, these services add up — but not to a lot. And they don’t answer the bigger question for the newspaper industry, how to survive the threat of the meme, “Information wants to be free on the Internet.”

Just today, the San Francisco Chronicle’s David Lazarus opined that, “It’s time for newspapers to stop giving away the store. We as an industry need to start charging for … use of our products online.” He said such a move needs to be industry-wide, and that, “This is approaching a life-or-death struggle for newspapers, and an antitrust exemption may be the only way that the industry can make the transition to a digital future.”

I think Lazarus is wrong (and I’m also very troubled by his call for an antitrust exemption). I can’t think of a way for newspapers to become more irrelevant and blogs to make more of an impact than the newspapers removing free access articles from their websites. Blogs have often been described as parasitic in the way that many of them rely upon newspapers for links and commentary. Fair enough. But here’s the flip side: blogs also draw more attention to an article and, thus, a newspaper’s reputation for quality journalism.

But let’s say newspapers abandon their free content. Well, online audiences, looking for free content, go elsewhere: to blogs that are conducting in-depth interviews, essays and ancillary journalism. (Without that newspaper content to draw from, blogs may resort to conducting journalism of their own. In fact, many already are.) The advertisers, seeing this bandwidth shift, turn to the blogs for their revenue. (In fact, as reported this morning, we’re beginning to see early signs of this.) The blogs, all competing for this revenue, then proceed to up their game. And it’s just like the early days of newspapers, with multiple newspapers were competing for a city’s reading attention. Except the competitive model has now shifted to a micro-level, with individuals or collectives conducting this new journalism. Perhaps former journalists, many of them downsized because of recent newspaper firings, will initiate blogs of their own and, like the two Glenns (Reynolds and Greenwald), attract mass audiences.

And let’s say these new journo-bloggers team up and generate enough revenue to hire copy editors and fact checkers. Well, then, you’ve got a virtual newsroom on your hands. And it’s all free. And with email and comments enabled, you’re talking about an instantaneous model with 24/7 reporting that newspapers can’t compete with. Why can’t they compete? Well, it’s all about access. Sure, readers can and will contact newspapers to tip reporters. But if they can’t access all the content and follow the stories, they’ll go to another free conduit in which a story is easily trackable — a particularly easy thing to do with blog categories enabled. They’ll do this because they’ll know that their voices will be heard and responded to and possibly included within the course of a story. They’ll do this because the journo-bloggers won’t view themselves as gatekeepers. The journo-bloggers will see their readers as peers with which to exchange and verify information.

Sure, there will be a period in which the experts and the cranks will have to be sorted out. And it’s very possible that cranks might prove popular. Hell, one can easily argue that they already are.

Of course, the easier thing for newspapers to do is to hire bloggers and start thinking about fusion of print and online journalism, adopting these virtual newsrooms themselves. (Even mid-sized newspapers like the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News are thinking along these lines.) But I don’t think this will be easy. Because there’s a vast difference between $745.5 million in online advertising and $13.2 billion in print advertising (both figures from Q4 2006, cited in Editor & Publisher). That’s a stunning shortfall that a collection of newspapers, each with a staff of 200 or so, can’t support.

But a collection of blogs, each with a staff of 3 or 4? I’m thinking they might get by on that amount.

Whatever happens, I don’t think either newspapers and bloggers are going away. I think we’re going to see a lot of newspapers go extinct in the next five years (with some major surprises), particularly the ones which insist upon paid content only. I also don’t think journalism is going away either. It’s just going to change. A lot.

by Edward Champion

Roundup

  • If the n+1 and McSweeney’s controversies weren’t enough for you, Sarah has raised some important points about the current state of genre-related reviews, asking, “So where are the new passionate voices who think about this genre in ways I haven’t even begun to explore but hope to engage with? Who’s going to come along to counteract antiquated notions of what genre criticism is and what books benefit from more than just a thumbs-up/thumbs-down approach?”
  • Times Online: “What is surprising is that such a high percentage of those without a marked talent for any particular profession should think of writing as the solution. One would expect that a certain percentage would imagine they had a talent for medicine, a certain percentage for engineering, and so on. But this is not the case. In our age, if a boy or a girl is untalented, the odds are in favour of their thinking they want to write.”
  • I agree with Scott, although I should point out that, if I’m a “hypocrite” for refusing to post private emails on this website (a position that I still adhere to), while simultaneously being entertained by Mark’s series, then so is anyone who laughed at the Aleksey Vayner video. A weak personality attribute, I agree. But nobody’s perfect.
  • The thoughtful Dan Wickett has an anthology in the works.
  • Paul Collins on the worst pulp novelist ever.
  • Sasha Frere-Jones on Nine Inch Nails.
  • Glenn Greenwald on Bush’s “literary luncheon.”
  • Why are Canadians making so many zombie movies? Answer: It is the rule of zombie movies that a conservative government inspires more of them. Now that Harper is Prime Minister, it is reasonably certain that there will be many more zombie movies, just as the number of zombie movies increased big time under the Reagan and Bush II administrations.
  • Erin O’Brien celebrates Naked Couch Day, which was apparently yesterday.
  • Online newspaper revenue is growing; print advertising is decreasing.
  • The gender disparity on op-ed pages is so bad that there are classes being taught to teach women how to write op-ed columns. (via Bookninja)
  • Jenny Crusie asked her readers if they knew how to dispose of a body to ensure that it wouldn’t be found. So far, she’s received 102 responses. The Internet is a frightening place. (via Bill Peschel)