Comments on: Journalists, bail yourselves out

By: The impotence of one-off journalism at Newsless.org

The impotence of one-off journalism at Newsless.org — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 23:24:23 +0000

[...] connects rather nicely to the rant I posted in September about our failure to connect the dots of the financial crisis for the public. But it [...]

By: Best. Election. Coverage. EVAR. at Newsless.org

Best. Election. Coverage. EVAR. at Newsless.org — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 03:10:59 +0000

[...] “best election coverage ever” argument is merely a Trojan horse for a dead horse that I’m still beating, years after the beating got good. [...]

By: Anna Haynes

Anna Haynes — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 02:20:46 +0000

re my
> What I’d like to see (Knight?) is awards specifically for those who called these things right, at a time when everyone else was going with the flow.

Well, that was fast - John Walcott wins the first I.F. Stone Medal

By: Robert Ivan

Robert Ivan — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 05:47:18 +0000

I have screen shots from many news sites around the nation from when the bailout vote failed. Pretty wide range of success and failure. You and your readers might be interested.

http://metaprinter.com/?p=332

By: Is the financial crisis good for newspapers? — Eat Sleep Publish

Is the financial crisis good for newspapers? — Eat Sleep Publish — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:14:22 +0000

[...] course, you could also think that the financial crisis represents an utter failure of the media to effectively cover the [...]

By: Anna Haynes

Anna Haynes — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 18:54:16 +0000

re Tim’s
> “couldn’t part of the problem be a classic case of journalists/newspapers’ incentives — money, awards, book deals — being misaligned with respect to the public’s interest in knowing what the f— is going on right now?”

What I’d like to see (Knight?) is awards specifically for those who called these things right, at a time when everyone else was going with the flow.

And the winners should flaunt their award, forever more - to make it easy for the public to see who’s been worth reading/listening to in the past, and thus is likely to be worth our attention now.

By: Presenting: The money meltdown

Presenting: The money meltdown — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 01:43:42 +0000

[...] Monday’s little diatribe, I figured I should put my soon-to-be-worthless money where my mouth is. And my co-blogger offered [...]

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 06:46:36 +0000

Ooh! Re: funny dance videos and unicorns, perhaps you could also include videos of the best late-night jokes about the financial crisis. Often informative, and cathartic too.

By: robin

robin — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 06:28:04 +0000

Matt! I want the site you imagine to exist!

I want it to be exactly one (1) page. White background. Quick links to best overall explainers. Small micro-blog of best stories (max one per day) that focus on deep context.

Plus, at the bottom, a few links to funny dance videos and maybe a unicorn. Breaaathe.

If this is still a huge crisis tomorrow let’s make this site. It would be so easy.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 05:29:42 +0000

I think it’s partially incentives, certainly, and it’s partially inertia. At least in newspapers, I think our fundamental structural orientation blinds us to how little context is seeping through to our audience.

(1) We’re wired for breaking news. It’s what gets us the most traffic on our Web sites and allows us to use the giant headlines.

(2) The AP and other wire services are sending tons of breaking news nuggets and analyses and commentaries and backgrounders every minute, and we tend to think that by curating and packaging that stuff (only emphasizing the most valuable wire information available), we are accessibly delivering a comprehensive view of the news to our audiences. And if you only consider the past 24 hours, of course, we’re right.

(3) We’re still inexplicably excited by the sight of lots and lots of our headlines and related links on a Web page. We see this and think, “Look at the incomparable depth of our coverage!” not “Wow, it would take a severely OCD-impaired person to click through all this!”

There are other structural causes, but I have to go to sleep.