Comments on: Side By Side On My QWERTY Keyboard

By: Tim Redmond

Tim Redmond — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 23:40:56 +0000

No, I don’t think the SETI model will work. I think that all this talk of old and new media isn’t relevant here. There will always be a need for reporters — people who go out and dig for information — and I may be old fashioned, but I think work is generally done better (and by a more diverse group of people) if you actually pay for it. I, for example, have two kids; there is no way I could have a real full-time day job and also cover San Francisco politics in my (non-existent) spare time.
I’m not saying that citizen journalism is irrelevant, or that bloggers haven’t done wonders covering and breaking news, or that bloggers aren’t journalists (many of them are). And I agree that in the litblogosphere, there is great work done. But in the end, you need to pay people a living wage to do political/investigative reporting, and I think we will reach the point where blogs do just that. I can see, for example, DailyKos hiring a full-time reporter to cover the next presidential race; why not? But Craig will never do that.
I also think Craig is creating an empire that keeps others out. I don’t like that in any business. I respect you, and Kos, and MyDD, and Atrios, and the other good bloggers because your REALLY create community — by encouraging others to join in. You never see bloggers doing anything that knocks other bloggers out of the game.

By: Jackson West

Jackson West — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 23:35:33 +0000

My question is, in the Bay Guardian’s redesign, why didn’t they spend any time adding features and functionality to the web site? In Tali Woodward’s follow-up to my reporting on the Harmon Leon-Tom Walsh dust up, there were URLs at the bottom of the article to SFist and Too Beautiful, Mark Pritchard’s blog. But they weren’t even linked! While it’s a minor point, it’s the kind of detail that really sticks in my craw as somebody who gets 80% of his news online (it would be 100% if Muni had wifi).

I know that the Bay Guardian sells online ads (the rate sheet is how I found out that SFist is getting more monthly traffic than the BG now). Well, I could think of a dozen ways to engage readers, get traffic from aggergators and searches, maintain city directory listings and classified ads combined with user feedback, publish content daily and expand into multimedia. All of which would create more ad inventory to sell at cheaper prices, lower overhead and higher margins. Local small businesses are desperate for affordable, locally-targeted advertising opportunities.

I love the BG, I’ve written for the BG, but I’d hate to see the BG die because it refused to adapt to a changing media environment. Except for the actual stories, I pay no attention to the rest of the Bay Guardian. I’ve got ChowHound for restaurants, the Squid List for cultural events, Fecal Face for the art scene, Upcoming for everything else, and of course I’ve got all my pornography and prostitution needs over-served online. I can even browse it all on my cell phone now.

If I were publishing something on newsprint, I’d be taking a long, hard look at my entire business model right now. I’m not saying to stop printing the paper, but it’s obvious that dead-tree publishing isn’t exactly a growing market. Where the hell else are you going to find new revenue streams to pay for professional journalism if not online?

By: DrMabuse

DrMabuse — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 19:51:48 +0000

Tim: Thanks for stopping by. But I have to ask. Is it not equally elitist and crazy to assume that unpaid volunteer bloggers or podcasters can’t cover an event with the same gusto or thoroughness as journalists?

In the interests of getting behind how both sides of the debate, how do you define “professional.” If you’re defining “professional” as an expert who is paid to do the work, define the expert nature of that work. Because from where I’m sitting (in the litblogosphere, at least), I’ve seen reports, author interviews and thoughtful takes on any number of literary subjects. This is all happening independently of Craig. And, at least in the case of litblogs, litbloggers are allowed to thrive because newspapers have severely diminished their book coverage. Although I will say that, in the Bay Guardian’s case, the monthly supplement Lit features more book coverage than most (and as a regular reader, I commend you for this).

The other thing you’re forgetting about, Tim, is that if volunteers are each working on a tiny piece of the puzzle, you have a case of peer-to-peer journalism — not unlike what happened with the SETI @ Home project. Let’s say P2P Journaist 1 talks with one source, while P2P Journalist 2 talks with another. For anyone else looking into the story, it’s extremely easy with Technorati to follow links and find out what’s been talking about. And podcasting allows for the release of audio. Granted, I will confess that private and anonymous sources fall by the wayside through this approach. But you literally have a potential reporting pool of thousands, if not millions, willing to chip in. How indeed can an alt-weekly with a staff of 30 compete with a pool of thousands?

What I’m suggesting here to you (and to the bloggers) is not to discount EITHER side on this debate.

By: Tim Redmond

Tim Redmond — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 19:32:50 +0000

My point is not to whine about lost revenue but to say that the world needs professional, paid reporters. I don’t care if they work for blogs (where some do, and they do a fine job) or for print or for some new medium that doesn’t exist yet. What I’m saying is that Craig is hurting newspapers that actually pay and train people to provide the basic information we all need about what the people who run this country are doing. And he isn’t offering an alternatives.

The type of medium doesn’t matter. What matters is that you can’t properly cover government, big business and the power structure with volunteers doing it on their own time. That’s elitist and crazy.