Are blogs, news aggregators like Google, and citizen journalistsdestroying traditional, in-depth investigative reporting? Representatives from newspapers like The Dallas Morning News andThe Washington Post faced off with Google and the Huffington Postbefore the Senate Commerce Committee Wednesday to discuss the future of journalism – a future that some believe will not include hard-hitting, local news. "High-end journalism is dying in America," said David Simon, a former reporter for The Baltimore Sun and writer of the popular HBO series "The Wire". Bloggers, he said, primarily serve up "repetition, commentary, and froth." "I'm not making a Luddite argument [against technology], but I do not run into bloggers at City Hall or in the courthouse hallways or in bars where police officers hang out," Simon said. Arianna Huffington, who founded the Huffington Post blog in 2005, argued that "you never know where the consumer is going to be at any point in time so you have to find a way to be everywhere." The Huffington Post is preparing to launch a 10-person investigative branch next month, she said. "The content will be available to anybody," she said. "The way we would monetize is through advertising." One company that knows a lot about monetization through advertising is Google, which sent Marissa Mayer, vice president of search product and user experience, to speak on its behalf. Google has been criticized by media honchos like Rupert Murdochfor aggregating news stories on Google News. They are making money by stealing content, Murdoch has said. On the contrary, Mayer argued, Google is helping boost media outlets' advertising dollars by pointing users to certain stories and increasing the number of clicks a story receives. Consumers only see the first 200 words of a story or less on Google News, which is not enough to give them the whole story and therefore encourages them to click, she said. Furthermore, businesses that do not agree with this model can opt-out of having their stories aggregated on Google News, Mayer said. All of those in attendance acknowledged that the newspaper business is evolving and that the Internet will play a major role going forward, but will that future include free, ad-supported content or subscriptions? "We just want a fair compensation for the content that we publish," said James Moroney, publisher and chief executive of The Dallas Morning News. Without it, Google News has no content and no advertising revenue. Moroney held talks with Amazon about putting his newspaper's content on the recently announced Kindle DX, but Amazon wanted to keep 70 percent of the subscription revenue, as well as the rights to re-publish that content on any portable device. "That to me is not a business model that is going to work for newspapers," he said. While Murdoch has had success in retaining online subscribers forThe Wall Street Journal, competitor The New York Times was not as successful when it made certain content subscription-only via the now defunct Times Select. To attract subscribers, newspapers are going to have to incorporate compelling content, Simon said. He pointed to cable TV, which convinced people to pay for a service that had been free for 30 years because it offered intriguing content. Detractors like Huffington were not convinced, arguing that people are not going to go back and pay for something they have received for free. Does the government have any role in this transition? Panel members were not in favor of a government bailout and everyone was in agreement that the fourth estate should remain independent, but some suggested that Congress could alleviate the tax burden by making papers non-profit entities or assuage fears of litigation by relaxing antitrust laws and allowing newspapers to commiserate about their futures. The Department of Justice, however, has voiced its opposition to altering antitrust laws. Sen. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the Internet subcommittee, did say he was in favor of updating congressional rules for journalism credentials on Capitol Hill to allow access to more bloggers and online publications. The Standing Committee of Correspondents has "struggled with how to address the digital information age" for the last three years, but "now is the time we treat online reporters fairly, and we're going to work to do that," Kerry said. Source: http://tech.yahoo.com/news/zd/20090506/tc_zd/240066 Other great sources of info: http://globalitandbusinessnews.blogspot.com/ http://globalbusinessnews.posterous.com/ http://twitterpulsepoll.posterous.com/ @globalnewsfeed - https://twitter.com/globalnewsfeed @pulsepoll - https://twitter.com/pulsepoll @kxlsyd - https://twitter.com/kxlsyd
May 7, 2009
Is Google News Ruining Journalism?
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