Advertisement
Help Keep Boards Alive. Support us by going ad free today. See here: https://subscriptions.boards.ie/.
https://www.boards.ie/group/1878-subscribers-forum

Private Group for paid up members of Boards.ie. Join the club.
Hi all, please see this major site announcement: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058427594/boards-ie-2026

Oops I accidentally the whole civil society...

  • 14-02-2012 09:13AM
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,387 ✭✭✭✭


    I thought I'd post my thoughts on the recent spate between "new" and "old" media.

    In the last 2 weeks we've seen an unprecedented level of attacks on "New Media" from politicians and newspapers. Seems fair enough you might say, we've orchestrated unprecedented levels of protest of against them after all.
    But facetious humour aside, there is an important discussion here which is being lost in the bun fight.

    There are two issues here, both are complex and multidimensional. In this piece I will try to address the current "Old Media" vs "New Media" row. Later I'll write about the political issue.

    "Old Media" (read: Printed newspapers) are suffering financially. They are increasingly bought by fewer people and consequently command less advertising revenues, not to mention less income from direct sales. The largest circulation newspapers in the state reach a couple of hundred thousand people by their accounting (which is arrived at by multiplying sales by 2.5 readers per copy they estimate.. hmmm). Compare this with an ABC certified 2.2 Million unique readers of Boards per day and advertisers, keenly focused on "bang for buck" these days, are voting with their budgets.

    There is price pressure from online competition, which doesnt have to create a physical product and so has less production overheads. Online cuts into this advertising 'pie' and it is a pie which has shrunk recently due to recession. Add these together and you can see its a real squeeze. I could almost feel sorry for them.
    But I dont. I'm not inclined to have any sympathy for "old media". You might say "well you wouldn't, would you!" but that does me a disservice.

    You see, I love journalism. I'm a big fan. My grandfather was head printer for the Irish Times and when he lived with us the Irish Times would arrive, wrapped tight as a drum and we'd all read it voraciously. I would sit and wait for the post man to be the first to it before my father would assert patriarchal priority. I gorged myself on information until my young finger was black from tracing lines of text. The Times was spoken of with reverence in our house. It was "The paper of record". But its unfair to lay all of print media's faults at its door and just as unfair to accord all of its successes to its industry as a whole. My point is, I'm not an enemy of good journalism. In fact, given my history with Boards, you could say that honest civil communication is kinda my thing.

    So why no sympathy for their plight? Because they abandoned us first. In the last decade I have watched newspapers be derelict in their duty in my opinion. Alan Crosbie recently said that "New Media" has the "capacity to destroy civil society and cause unimaginable suffering". Dreadful hyperbole and in the height of irony it was quoted by lots of Old Media out of context. http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0206/media.html

    Alan Crosbie makes some interesting points in his speech, a speech which Tom Crosbie exhorts everyone to read in full. (The irony continues in that the only way to do so is with ease is online). If you are interested in his point of view on modern journalism, I recommend you do read it.
    I agree with several of his general points about the health of a society being tied to a free and questioning media. Where I begin to diverge from him is when he rather loosely draws the conclusion that that function is being performed by the current crop of dead tree peddlers. And that we should support this via taxes! It isnt. We shouldn't.

    Our current media is not questioning anything by and large. There is an illness in modern media, an illness everyone is happy to suffer from. It is one of easy comfortable alliance. If you are a work-a-day journalist you dont bite the hand that drip-feeds you. Where was the incisive, brave reporting during the FF years? During the "boom"? During the bailout? NoW??? This malaise has been refined by modern PR companies into a viral epidemic. "Journalism" has drifted too far from its role of seeking the truth, publishing it and being damned. No one wants to be damned after all, do they?

    Not all journalists should be tarred with this brush. It must be bloody hard to do anything approaching journalism in an environment which is not aligned to support a writer searching for the truth. "Hey boss, I just discovered a juicy story which implicates our biggest advertiser along with a politician who regularly gives us the inside line (when it suits him to do so)". Yeah... not a fantastic career move.

    Could Woodward and Bernstein report on Watergate in today's "Old Media" environment? To steal a phrase from the Haughey years... could they ****!
    One of the primary reasons people are turning from Old Media is because it isn't servicing their needs any longer. Newspapers are supposed to be The Watchmen. The whistle blowers alerting us all to danger, keeping the corridors of power honest. They've failed in that duty and they are suffering now because we no longer see them as relevant enough to be worth the asking price. Worse, many feel they have been bought and sold, such is their unwillingness to so much as tweak a nose.

    It would be unfair to them to leave it at that. Education has failed us too. How many boys sit waiting for the paper to be delivered these days? Hell, how many people read anything to do with current affairs? You cannot consider anything relating to X-Factor or Madonnas latest child-acquisition to qualify... How many people are engaged by the political landscape enough to sit and read about it? You can hardly blame "Old Media" in playing to its paying audience! The people who are interested in Celebrity News don't read, they look at. In this regard Alan Crosbie is right. Sometimes what a society needs is not what a society wants or is willing to pay for.
    But I champion a different solution than his suggestion that we shore up a medium which has failed us with explicit financial support from those they should be questioning. How he feels that will lead to anything but a worsening of the situation I cannot see and it smacks to me of "I want a bailout for my media empire". I prefer to democratise the ability to discuss, broadcast and publish. Believe me I feel Newspapers pain when faced with our common enemy of the defamation laws in Ireland. An enemy we should join forces and fight together.

    Recently "Old Media" has been bemoaning the practise of "New Media" stealing their news and reheating it. This is the lie which hides in plain sight. Last night I watched twitter and uServe and Boards and blogs of the Greek parliament inside and riots outside. I was fed links and sources of information from a wide variety of places. The my inner "young lad" gorged again. I now know more then I ever thought possible about the inner workings of Greek political life. I watched live feeds and read honest on the ground accounts of real time news from people who were there. Sure, some had their own agendas, but you cant stop the signal. When there are so many sources of news, the blur bubbles up the truth more objectively than any editor possibly can.

    And I sat there and thought "Tomorrow, who will steal from whom"?


    (also on my blog: constainstracesofnut dot com)


«13

Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 746 ✭✭✭skregs


    This just in: guy advertising his blog says newspapers now less important than blogs


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 9,423 ✭✭✭cml387


    Old media is of course too pally with the establishment.
    This is because ( at the moment ) old media is considered authoritative.

    Once some new media (think Huffington Post, Guido Fawkes, etc.) become
    authoritative, don't you think they'll be subject to the same blandishments from the establishment and the same temptations?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,758 ✭✭✭✭TeddyTedson


    skregs wrote: »
    This just in: guy advertising his blog says newspapers now less important than blogs
    He eludes to the fact that he is going to be seen as being biased, but backs everything up very well.
    I personally think "new media" is an obvious and undeniable replacement of old media as we continue into the "digital revolution".
    Who wants to read the opinions of a delusional journalist like John Walters when they can read multiple opinions from real people who aren't trying to "sell" a story.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 34,808 ✭✭✭✭smash


    That was too long. Can you re-write it in txt spk please! :D


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,173 ✭✭✭✭kmart6


    I think as a younger generation we do have an interest in current affairs, but why wait for a paper carrying day old news when it can be got online as soon as its known! The dawn of twitter for instance allows for breaking news to travel quicker than other form of media....even dedicated news channels!


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 722 ✭✭✭Park Royal


    Reads like old news to me......

    Scales fall from peoples eyes at different times ......welcome !


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,332 ✭✭✭Guill


    Wow, new modern, faster way of delivery news replaces old slower version.


    What is the world comin to?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 43,038 ✭✭✭✭SEPT 23 1989


    The new media can see straight through the spin the governments try to put on news stories

    thus rendering the spin doctors and their old media mouthpieces obsolete


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,387 ✭✭✭✭DeVore


    skregs wrote: »
    This just in: guy advertising his blog says newspapers now less important than blogs
    Which is why I didn't link up the blog.... Knew someone would be a smarty pants :p
    I posted it here because discussions on blogs always seem asymmetrical whereas Boards is more a conversation between equals.

    (I also suspect that since you think I'm advertising my blog you don't really understand that Boards is kinda my site :):p )


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,651 ✭✭✭✭El Weirdo


    DeVore wrote: »
    I thought I'd post my thoughts on the recent spate between "new" and "old" media.

    In the last 2 weeks we've seen an unprecedented level of attacks on "New Media" from politicians and newspapers. Seems fair enough you might say, we've orchestrated unprecedented levels of protest of against them after all.
    But facetious humour aside, there is an important discussion here which is being lost in the bun fight... blah, blah, blah...
    Mmmmmmmmmmm, buns...


  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,395 ✭✭✭✭mikemac1


    Mark Little left RTÉ to setup his own company

    Made a lot of same points as you Dev

    Just adding the video about The Future of News which I thought was interesting
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSYp0rtKTLM

    Some don't like him, I just read this thread and thought of the video

    Some further viewing maybe


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,899 ✭✭✭✭BBDBB


    Newspapers have been acting like Nero while Rome burned

    Their corruption, bias and sensationalism to fight a circulation war was the wrong tactic against the inveitable. The Internet has outgrown them, their day is done, its just a question of time before they become a history footnote.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,395 ✭✭✭✭mikemac1


    BBDBB wrote: »

    Their corruption, bias and sensationalism to fight a circulation war was the wrong tactic against the inveitable. The Internet has outgrown them, their day is done, its just a question of time before they become a history footnote.

    Some have adapted

    Daily Mail may be a rag but their website is superb and one of the most widely read newspaper websites in the world

    Lots and lots of advertising on it and it's updated constantly every hour and there is a team of moderators for the comments.
    They've found something that works.

    Just a pity about the lies, mistakes and everything else wrong with the DM :P
    But their business and internet team and doing their jobs better then most


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 31,581 ✭✭✭✭Ghost Train


    News and media forum is that way -> http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=444


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,384 ✭✭✭gbee


    The Cork Media wear rose coloured glasses and it's always sunny. Despite empty houses at opening nights, empty halls for protests the following days headlines or sub heading "Crowds Flock to ...."

    But somewhere online will be a report with the truth. The GAA also has enjoyed a special place, no photos of injuries or fights or blood. Well that seems to have changed recently or else that photographer never got the memo.

    On-line is not as great a media as people think, advertising is often counted as click through but the real effect is in sales. Also onliine advertising can be killed by ad-blockers and filters and such.

    I was once banned from a site for using an ad-blocker so that was circumvented by coming in from another country and running ad-blocker there. There is a huge groundswell of protest against online ads, there are invasive and delay the distribution of stories and news so people use other sources to get the feeds they want instantly, some site reload the ads on every refresh ~ ads or on the phone too, so it's really a bridge too far, far too invasive, in the end it's the print media and possibly the good old glossy magazine that will return a better deal long run.

    The trick is to get people to go looking for your site or looking for you newspaper. The success of two free newspapers in Cork alone could suggest that some issues that are mentioned in the article are in error as to the cause.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,462 ✭✭✭✭WoollyRedHat


    skregs wrote: »
    This just in: guy advertising his blog says newspapers now less important than blogs


    Stop the press!!!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 36,962 ✭✭✭✭LuckyLloyd


    DeVore wrote: »
    Recently "Old Media" has been bemoaning the practise of "New Media" stealing their news and reheating it. This is the lie which hides in plain sight. Last night I watched twitter and uServe and Boards and blogs of the Greek parliament inside and riots outside. I was fed links and sources of information from a wide variety of places. The my inner "young lad" gorged again. I now know more then I ever thought possible about the inner workings of Greek political life. I watched live feeds and read honest on the ground accounts of real time news from people who were there. Sure, some had their own agendas, but you cant stop the signal. When there are so many sources of news, the blur bubbles up the truth more objectively than any editor possibly can.
    And I sat there and thought "Tomorrow, who will steal from whom"?


    (also on my blog: constainstraceofnut dot com)

    Hmm, prove it? :)

    Tom, what you describe above is definitely exciting. If you want to get stuck into a topic there is such a wealth of information (good, bad and indifferent) a few clicks away. But is it really "better" than the true papers of record that existed decades ago?

    Bad information has always existed, so you could argue that biased bloggers who will play fast and loose with the facts are merely a modern version of a tabloid journalist. And sections of the public have always been willing to take bad information at face value. But when you remove the existence of the accepted score keeper (i.e. a respected Irish Times type paper), then it becomes harder for everyone to be sure what is really going on.

    To put it another way - someone like yourself, a self confessed lover of journalism who was in on the ground floor of an ever growing new media platform is going to be far better placed to sift through the wealth of information and disseminate the good from the bad from the downright ugly. You are well placed to become your own journalist. In my view, it is dangerous to assume that everyone has such ability. And I know that's an unpopular thing to say - everyone thinks they are smarter than they are, sharper than they are, etc. But that isn't the case, and the elimination of professional journalists and structured fact checking processes is far from ideal.

    It is true that 'old media' is a pale shadow of what it once was. But, as far as I can see, the void it has left has yet to be adequately filled.


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 36,496 Mod ✭✭✭✭pickarooney


    BBDBB wrote: »
    Newspapers have been acting like Nero while Rome burned

    The premise of which, of course, is a myth. Lies and character defamations have been around a lot longer than the printing press.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,899 ✭✭✭✭BBDBB


    mikemac1 wrote: »
    Some have adapted

    Daily Mail may be a rag but their website is superb and one of the most widely read newspaper websites in the world

    Lots and lots of advertising on it and it's updated constantly every hour and there is a team of moderators for the comments.
    They've found something that works.

    Just a pity about the lies, mistakes and everything else wrong with the DM :P
    But their business and internet team and doing their jobs better then most


    fair enough, I have no doubt you are right about the Daily Mail, I dont read it so can accept your view.


    I dont buy newspapers anymore, I havent done for years now, I pick one up in the queue at the barbers once every 6 weeks or so and have become increasingly disenfranchised by the contents. I think there are a few reasons for that

    * Its not "news" when its its showbiz gossip about a group of nobodies with little talent on TV shows that I dont watch are seen falling out of nightclubs.
    *The love lives of celebs doesnt interest me, its no ones business.
    * Opinions are not facts.
    *Lies are peddaled as truth.
    *Language used is for sensational effect to make a headline rather than tell a story
    *Sports news is about creating stories not reporting them



    As far as I am concerned the printed media is in the death throes.The generations to come wont walk down to the papershop to get a paper everyday when its 24 hours behind the internet. More costly, less convenient etc etc

    BUT

    The tragic loss of good journalism is a significant casualty and Im not convinced from the little I do read that the New Media is showing that much of a return to good journalism whilst it resides in the control of the Old Media


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,899 ✭✭✭✭BBDBB


    The premise of which, of course, is a myth. Lies and character defamations have been around a lot longer than the printing press.


    a good point, I was trying to illustrate that newspapers have been guilty of inaction and ineffectual action whilst their industry went down the pan and the analogy seemed apt from its popular understanding rather than its historical accuracy. But point conceded


  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 18,152 ✭✭✭✭Liam Byrne


    Is this a "guess the thread title's missing word" game ?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    Liam Byrne wrote: »
    Is this a "guess the thread title's missing word" game ?

    It's a Meme.

    Dev is all hip and stuff.:pac:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,246 ✭✭✭✭Dyr


    But when you remove the existence of the accepted score keeper (i.e. a respected Irish Times type paper), then it becomes harder for everyone to be sure what is really going on.

    You think the IT is a paper of record? has'nt been for a long time. They have theor own agenda and they like to push it :eek:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,384 ✭✭✭gbee


    Seachmall wrote: »
    It's a Meme.

    Dev is all hip and stuff.:pac:

    Thanks for that, I did not question the title, I'm very old media, but I did think it was related to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, so not that far off.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,387 ✭✭✭✭DeVore


    Seachmall wrote: »
    It's a Meme.

    Dev is all hip and stuff.:pac:
    Heheh, actually I'm being a bit post-ironic (ooh danger of being a hipster now). I'm old and I tend not to write in slang or in sound bites. I like the old way of writing I guess... So I'm somewhat taking the mick out of myself by using dem nu-fangled meme tings.

    Lloyd, you might be right but as someone put it earlier, the void has yet to be filled... My point is that it will be! The talent for critical analysis is a crucial one in today's "spun" world. Everything from news-as-entertainment through to advertising and product-placement needs a much more critical and some would say cynical outlook. It's the new reading and writing really.

    But look at BBC... They have translated their brand loyalty and more importantly brand TRUST to online very successfully. Anything writing on a BBC branded channel gets lots more trust from me then joe randoms blog. I take probably 10 sources for any news story I'm interested but when I could show my father a live feed from Occupy Wall Street while they were being evicted his only comment was ... "why isn't this on the news???".

    When I can watch the riots for myself in real time...l what need have I of a product which only *tells* me about it 12 hours... Spun in some unknown way...

    There is an answer to that but the newspapers have to make it work and I don't have time to write it all on this iPad now :)


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,387 ✭✭✭✭DeVore


    Seachmall wrote: »
    It's a Meme.

    Dev is all hip and stuff.:pac:
    Heheh, actually I'm being a bit post-ironic (ooh danger of being a hipster now). I'm old and I tend not to write in slang or in sound bites. I like the old way of writing I guess... So I'm somewhat taking the mick out of myself by using dem nu-fangled meme tings.

    Lloyd, you might be right but as someone put it earlier, the void has yet to be filled... My point is that it will be! The talent for critical analysis is a crucial one in today's "spun" world. Everything from news-as-entertainment through to advertising and product-placement needs a much more critical and some would say cynical outlook. It's the new reading and writing really.

    But look at BBC... They have translated their brand loyalty and more importantly brand TRUST to online very successfully. Anything writing on a BBC branded channel gets lots more trust from me then joe randoms blog. I take probably 10 sources for any news story I'm interested but when I could show my father a live feed from Occupy Wall Street while they were being evicted his only comment was ... "why isn't this on the news???".

    When I can watch the riots for myself in real time...l what need have I of a product which only *tells* me about it 12 hours... Spun in some unknown way...

    There is an answer to that but the newspapers have to make it work and I don't have time to write it all on this iPad now :)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 11,581 ✭✭✭✭TheZohanS



    > News and Media forum.


    don't ban me


  • Moderators, Music Moderators Posts: 25,885 Mod ✭✭✭✭Doctor DooM


    It basically boils down to the old money makers trying to kill the people they think will replace them. Which, again, is a story way older than old media.

    Tangentally, I wonder how many people first delved into piracy because they wanted to see something when it was released in America, but Europe/ wherever was supposed to sit and wait. Retention of old business models when it's time to move on will always cause this type of conflict.

    There's only so long they're going to be able to fight those fires. Hopefully they don't manage to wreck the internet on the way (Mr. Sherlock).


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    DeVore wrote: »
    Heheh, actually I'm being a bit post-ironic (ooh danger of being a hipster now). I'm old and I tend not to write in slang or in sound bites. I like the old way of writing I guess... So I'm somewhat taking the mick out of myself by using dem nu-fangled meme tings.

    I hate myself for this but it had to be done.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,745 ✭✭✭✭kylith


    OP: you misspelled your blog in your first post. Methinks you could use an editor.


Advertisement
Advertisement