“The Great Jules Crittenden”
Dean Barnett at Hugh Hewitt is I think the first person to call me that who does not appear to be joking, in this essay on new vs. old media in which he hits several (other) nails on the head. He also calls me a “nationally known writer and content provider.”
Excuse me. I meant to say, the great Dean Barnett. Barnett bestows greatness on me in what I can only say is a brilliant, inspired and insightful article on the need for mainstream print writers and newspapers to aggressively establish themselves on the Internet. He mentions my case as an example of someone who is doing so.
He adds that even though he lives in Boston, where I work, he didn’t know my name until I started blogging last year. Hey, what about when I was branded an international art thief and a war criminal everywhere from the Boston Globe and the New York Times to Pravda, al-Jazeera, CNN and Cuba Socialista? Not to mention the reputable news outlets. Sheesh. Talk about the death of old media.
Never mind. The Internet is a thing of great and terrible beauty, the Gutenberg Revolution finally living up to its promise of free exchange of knowledge and information. A tremendous creative force that is also a destructive force. My own business is looking more like a shaky late stage Roman Empire, which was in its day the single stop for civilization, law and order, engineering and scientific knowledge, then torn apart by the barbarian hordes from which our civilization emerged, something better but still employing a lot of the conventions, devices, terminology of the old empire. The Internet is at the gates of journalism, and our walls are crumbling.
But the Internet is not in a position yet to replace the old media, because it can’t sustain the reporting infrastructure that newspapers and TV have. Mainly newspapers, which probably have put more people out doing more in-depth reporting and monitoring of events, business, government and society in general, and created a greater volume of information, for better or worse, than any other institution outside of government itself, while playing the role of watchdog, critic and gadfly.
The low cost of Internet advertising and the easy access to information it provides is killing newspapers, even as it feeds on their content, without replacing their reporting infrastructure with anything more than spotty boutique coverage … some great work, but nowhere near enough of it. The high cost of printing and distribution made newspapers the great mass advertising medium of their day, and subsidized all that newsgathering capacity. No longer true, when anyone can set up a website at virtually no cost, and anyone with a bright idea can walk away with large portions of old media’s lunch.
Simply shutting down print operations, which with distribution make up the vast majority of newspaper costs, and going strictly online with perhaps a limited vanity run of newsprint, remains non-viable. Internet advertising income potential so far is not sufficient to support multi-million dollar news organizations.
A note on the content itself. A lot of Internet chatter suggests newspapers are bringing this on themselves, and that their biased reporting drives people away. But it is affecting news organizations of all stripes. Clearly the Internet offers other kinds of highly personalized and creative content that newspapers are intrinsically ill-suited to provide. However, most of the raw news on the Internet comes from the same traditional news organizations. It’s just that people don’t have to pay to get it, and they are no longer limited to a few local venues. They hit a few buttons, and they can find what they want presented with whatever slant, personal musings, snark and flashy graphics they prefer, in thousands of variations.
This is a wonderful thing, but it is also a bad thing, unless you like getting all your news from the AP and a handful of sources like it. This situation is already approaching crisis, as newspapers reduce their staffs and shut bureaus, though I think we have a way to go and newspapers could learn a lot about how to use their resources more wisely, while trying to figure out a viable financing model and more engaging ways of … engaging.
Anyway, on the Internet things move fast, just as they always have in the news business, only faster. Warhol was right about everyone getting to be famous, but that “15 minutes” prediction was from another age. So I need to go now, and enjoy being great for the next two or three minutes, because then it’s over.
More evidence of old media woes: severely compromised ability to deploy metaphors. Ouch, stop that. Time Warner vs. Google, etal.
Topics: media
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:14 am on Wednesday, May 9, 2007
8 Responses to ““The Great Jules Crittenden””
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May 9th, 2007 at 9:14 am
A world where the weightier part of our raw data comes via the AP and AFP is indeed a scary place, Jules. While there are lots of ‘cyber-sleuths’ on the internet these days, they are ultimately wholly dependent upon the information that others are willing to upload…and upon Google’s filters. We need to have feet pounding the pavement and getting the data, and they need to get paid for it. Perhaps we need a new start-up news-gathering service that exists solely for the internet, consisting of basically reporters and IT folks. *Hopefully* without pressmen and delivery drivers to pay there would be sufficient ad revenue to support it.
May 9th, 2007 at 9:28 am
What draws me to blogs is that stories are iteratively updated and corrected in a readily apparent manner — something the print media does only grudgingly and never in an apparent manner.
The availability of comments allows SME’s to get their word in as well. The print media often cherry picks who they would put forth as a SME for a story.
May 9th, 2007 at 9:55 am
I do believe that we need a diversity of information sources, but I suspect that part of the media’s problem lies with a basic distrust and misunderstanding of the new technology. A fair number of people still hold a jaundiced view of the INTERNET and information technology, and this keeps them from full use of the capabilities.
I see this on a routine basis in my job. There’s often a better way of doing a given task, but because people are still thinking in terms of paper and pencil (which have their use, but only as another tool in the tool box), that alternative is ignored. (I admit to having this problem myself, on a limited scale. OTOH, I am aware of it, and try to compensate. Other people to refuse to even try).
It might be a generation or more before the dead tree papers settle into some sort of equilibrium with the INTERNET. And that’s only partly technological….it’s really a people related problem.
May 9th, 2007 at 10:21 am
[...] great post by Jules Crittenden about the Internet, blogs and print media. The Internet is a thing of great and [...]
May 9th, 2007 at 10:49 am
We’ve got a long, long way to go before there’s a skilled and reputable blogger on every beat. That’s what it would take to replace the original reportage that the old media provides (and news is necessary to feed online commentary). So, yes, there’s very definitely a need for what newspapers have to sell.
But they have to figure a way to make enough money to support the operation (making up for the loss of classified advertising, for example). And most papers and TV news have been running in exactly the wrong direction — away from hard news (which they currently own) and toward opinion (where online commentators seriously compete).
May 9th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
[...] Jules Crittenden breaks down the replacement of old media and internet advertising, amongst other topics. [...]
May 9th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
unless you like getting all your news from the AP and a handful of sources like it.
There are still plenty of people who do this, and depend on it, because the technology part of the information revolution has passed them by. But they’re a shrinking population. The truth is, we don’t have any idea what the news organizations of the future are going to look like, other than they will not look like the news organizations of today. It’s best to keep riding the crest of the wave. Keep up the good work, Jules.
I’m reminded of what Arthur C. Clarke once said:
“When an elderly grey-haired scientist tells you something is scientifically possible, he is almost always right; and when an elderly, grey-haired scientist tells you something is scientificaly impossible, he is almost always wrong.”
That could apply to newspaper management as well.
“The only constant in life is change.”
- Bruce Lee
[/geek]
May 9th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
[...] Related: Jules Crittenden shares what it’s like to be inside the belly of the beast. My own business is looking more like a shaky late stage Roman Empire, which was in its day the [...]