[NU Sports] FW: re: decimated Chi. Trib. sports staff

[Roy Lamberton]

Anyone who saw the "Pearls before Swine" comic strip the other day, 
http://comics.com/pearls_before_swine/2009-04-20
saw one of the problems facing big traditional media.

Much of the political talk has drifted over to the web - The Politico seems
to be the major source of news around the DC area, not the Post. Matt Drudge
- you can love him or hate him - seems to provide an index to things
happening around the US, altho I sometimes question the importance he hangs
on some stories.

I can safely say that while I look at the sports pages of our two Gannet
papers here on the shore, its more to see if my stories on baseball and
softball have made the late editions, not to read the politically inspired
worship of politicians on the front, besides, both local dailies have
excellent web sites which let you scan thru many more local stories faster. 

One scary observation: there was a survey that showed that most of the 18-25
audience got most of their news from Comedy Central. 

Even the commander of the forces in Bagdad has a Facebook site to put out
his thoughts on what's happening in Iraq! The Blog has become the primary
way for anyone with an opinion and a computer to put out his or her thoughts
without checking references or reading history. 

My father still gets the Wilmington, DE newspaper and reads it every morning
before breakfast. At 90 it is hard to break a habit born back in the 20's,
when everyone read a couple of newspapers before work. As a child, we got 3
daily newspapers at home - The Daily News, the Herald Tribune, and Newsday -
and I usually scanned all of them before and after school.

Of my 3 sons, my youngest probably reads the local weekly when there's a
local sports story he's interested in, otherwise, its Sports Center on ESPN.
My other two get their news from the radio, during their commutes and off
the internet.

It’s a shame the newspaper biz has slid to the levels it has, and
(unfortunately) where it is going. Politico started up after the Washington
Post started cutting jobs. It now appears to be "the" source around DC for
political news because the guys writing it picked up where they were prior
to the Post's decision to cut reporters. 

National TV news will be next, with the local news outlets chopping length
of stories, and ignoring anything that can't be told in a minute. Sites like
You-Tube could become the primary source of news with video from cell phones
as the primary medium.

The local weekly newspapers are surviving as vehicles for distributing color
inserts and with stories about neighborhoods and sports.  

What we wind up with here is a general population who has been trained to
think in :30 second sound bites, not the full story. It’s a great
opportunity for anyone with a political bent to spread their personal biases
to, in some cases, a large group of people.

Some of us think that has already happened, and that is one reason for the
shrinking circulation of the printed news medium. I'll leave that analysis
to the media wizards.

I just remember a comment from the General Manager of the 500 daytimer in
Moberly, Missouri, that first billed over a million bucks a year - "You can
have the microphones, and the remote gear, and all the extra stuff if you
can get the advertising to pay for it."

When I first started in Radio, many broadcasters predicted the demise of the
big newspapers because there were more effective advertising media
available. It only took 30 years for that to happen. 

rsl 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Roy S. Lamberton - Senior Associate & Unix Guru.
Computer Applications & Support Associates
-------------------- Also ----------------------
Publisher: Purple Reign (Scout.com/Fox Sports)
Commissioner Delaware American Legion Baseball
Retired Senior Chief Cryptologic Technician [R]
Northwestern University - Sp 1974 - 
Chi Phi: Pi74, KD68
==========  Go Cats -  Beat 'em All  ===========
A Few Basic Truths:
  You cannot Legislate Morality
  You cannot Litigate Peace
  You cannot Tax yourself to Prosperity
  Wealth transfer makes everyone poorer
It's all been tried, and failed before.
================================================


-----Original Message-----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On
Behalf Of Weinbaum, Willie
Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2009 4:25 PM
To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
Subject: [NU Sports] FW: re: decimated Chi. Trib. sports staff

 
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