a crank's progress

[repurposed from here]

When the history of the recent era in journalism/the news business is written, part of the story that we’re not hearing about now is that since the 60s (with the influence of television news, I submit), the news has been about the news itself, about personalities and ratings and not so much about the news as information. J-schools have responded to the changes in the technology by increasing the use of tech, but how does that make for good subject matter experts?

When an organization as rich in talent and capability as ABC news gets something as basic as how the tax code works wrong as well as countless other examples from the past few to 20 years, how can we wring our hands about the demise of these dinosaurs?

Newspapers are a delivery and distribution mechanism, one that people still enjoy using — witness all the papers on front lawns and on buses. The ads, sports scores, actual news articles, editorials, the funnies, all these need to be examined to see what can be delivered using what means. As noted elsewhere (on Omar’s status update: sorry for hijacking), what if the actual delivered paper was just news and a few display ads, with the bulk of the ad circulars and color material online, accessible by an account number like a loyalty card (read: targeted ads, personal recommendations)? People want the ads, I understand that, but does everyone need all of them, or can we let people pick and choose and as a result better sell the space (which of course is virtual: no page counts, no costs to print, and multimedia content can even be used: try that in a fishwrapper).

The causes are many, from the rise of personalities who overshadowed the news (do I care who reads from a teleprompter? Only if he pretends he wrote the story. In other markets they call them newsreaders 😉 ) to the failure of the mgmt to understand that the a lot of what they deliver can be done much more cheaply by someone else *koff* craigslist *koff*

I see a lot of blurbs and articles on how sad it is that newspapers are dying but I don’t get a sense that anyone knows why, even as predictable and preventable it may have been.

The longstanding project called the General Social Survey, which has polled Americans about their feelings on a variety of political and social issues for more than 35 years, just recently came out with their preliminary 2008 data (which, I should warn you, is a little bit cumbersome to access).

One of my favorite sets of questions on the GSS is one that asks Americans about their degree of confidence in various social institutions; here is what those numbers looked like in 2008 as compared with eight years earlier before George W. Bush won the Presidency, as well as in 1976 when this question was first posed:

[From FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: Americans Losing Their Faith in Faith … And Everything Else]

So in wake of Watergate and Vietnam, the press was at 29% but the end of the Clinton witchhunts and today, after wars of choice and looting the treasury/crony capitalism, it’s less than a third of that.

Looks like a self-inflicted wound . . .

Heard on the radio:

Newspapers are the only industry totally dependent on 9 year old boys.

Not so much any longer, but there was a time when that was true and of course, it is the physical cost of production and distribution that is hurting the papers these days.

P.S.–This Sunday morning, March 15, “CBS News Sunday Morning” plans to air my report on A Better Place. It’s software millionaire Shai Agassi’s audacious plan to solve the climate crisis and eliminate our dependence on oil. The crux: Replace all of the world’s automobiles with electric cars that contain swappable batteries. Sound unattainable? Guess what: 5 countries, 3 American states, at least 2 car companies, and armies of investors (over $500 million so far) have already signed on to make it happen.

[From Circuits: An iPod So Small Its Controls Are Found on the Cord]

but but but . . . if the only part of the car we really need to replace is the powerplant and drivetrain (used to be that was the car), why not engineer replacement of that? Those really cool driving wheels with integrated motors and regenerative braking (they use ’em on buses so they’re plenty strong) can handle the propulsion and the engine compartment can house the storage and control stuff. Seriously, I would bet that a few standardized packages, based on wheel and engine compartment size, could be whipped a lot faster and cheaper that redoing an entire car.

I look at this graph and see how a nation won a world war, liberated and rebuilt Europe, rebuilt Japan, enjoyed incredible prosperity, put a man on the moon, launched the Great Society, and fought a land war in Asia.

Funny how the progress in those areas stops in 1968. Wonder what happened?

More here.

Too much is not enough for some people, evidently.

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Originally uploaded by your mistakes are your style.

context here and here

Scan-090226-0001

Originally uploaded by your mistakes are your style.

From a roll of test shots I made today. They looked like they were having fun.