> Subject: Re: [MGP-Forum Announce] Sony starts selling the Soney eBook reader:
> $349.00
>
> they'll have to market to the over-50 crowd, the only group that
> really wants to read newspapers. everyone under 30 wants to see,
> hear, share, talk about, contribute to.......

I fear that the myth that young adults don't care to read could become true
if the people who produce journalism act is if it is true. There is no
shortage of evidence that this is a myth; the Harris Poll, for example,
finds a significantly higher incidence of GenXers reading national
newspapers than in the general population.

Lots of well-educated people also say that poor people don't like to read,
but there's no shortage of evidence to the contrary on this point, as well.
For example, Wal-Mart is the fourth largest retailer of books, after
Borders, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon. And sales of mass-market paperbacks
have been growing for years.

For decades well-educated people have also asserted that people won't read
long stories in newspapers, especially working class people. But that's not
true either. Donald Barlett's and James B. Steele's Philadelphia Inquirer
series, "America: What Went Wrong?", consumed at least two full broadsheet
pages a day for a week and squarely addressed the issues of working people
-- the people who supposedly won't read long stories (or, more recently,
supposedly won't read at all). When the Barlett-Steele series appeared the
Inquirer's circulation shot up by 15,000 a day. When the paper made
reprints of the series available, the lines outside the Inquirer building
were so long the paper had to hire security guards to string velvet ropes to
keep the lines orderly. The Inquirer couldn't produce the reprints fast
enough, and gave away more than 200,000 of them. That was before the series
was repackaged as a book that went to No. 1 on the New York Times
best-seller list and sold more than 650,000 copies. The average best-seller
sells a little over 100,000 copies, indicating that A:WWW? Spilled over from
the usual middle-class book-buying crowd into people who don't buy many
books -- the folks that the myth says won't read.

It's my deep belief that people of all ages and socioeconomic strata will
read eagerly if presented with articles that squarely address the issues
that affect them directly, articles that are meaningful and relevant to
their lives. And there's plenty of evidence to support this belief.

The real problem is that very few news organizations publish articles for
readers other than the affluent, middle-aged readers their advertisers
crave. This discarding of all but the affluent readers is a journalistic
disgrace and crisis of democracy. The challenge facing us is to find ways
to bring quality journalism to everybody -- if we succeed, perhaps our
enfeebled democracy will regain some of its strength.

I addressed this topic more fully in my luncheon speech at the Media Giraffe
Summit in Amherst in July; the text is posted on the Center for Citizen
Journalism blog at
http://citmedia.org/blog/2006/07/03/guest-posting-is-media-performance-d...
racys-critical-issue/ .

Tom Stites
Publisher, UU World magazine
Unitarian Universalist Association
25 Beacon Street
Boston, MA 02108

617-948-6504
617-742-7025 (fax)

www.uuworld.org
www.uua.org

I'm not objecting to reading at all. But why put 1,000 words into
text that work better as still photos with audio? Why try to explain
how the Space Shuttle docks with the International Space Station when
an animated graphic works better? Check out Touching Hearts as a
good example - http://www.heraldsun.com/heart -- and turn off popup
blocker to watch...it's old, but classic multimedia. And there's a
nine-part text series that ran in the newspaper. Guess which gets
more hits? The better-told story (multimedia....which includes text).

Books are their own medium, and it took a while after the printing
press was invented for books to emerge in their wonderful form: text
on pages, front and back, enclosed in a cover, most a size that's
mobile. Fiction, especially, will remain as it is. Much nonfiction
can probably stand to lose some words to photos, video clips, audio.

We're entering a world of storytelling Zen: the story decides how it
wants to be told. Sometimes video. Sometimes still photos. Sometimes
audio. Sometimes graphics. Sometimes text. More than likely, some
combo of all. And, for journalism, the story is linked to people who
carry on the conversation and add to the story. Not elite at all.

On Sep 29, 2006, at 9:05 PM, tom stites wrote:

>> Subject: Re: [MGP-Forum Announce] Sony starts selling the Soney
>> eBook reader:
>> $349.00
>>
>> they'll have to market to the over-50 crowd, the only group that
>> really wants to read newspapers. everyone under 30 wants to see,
>> hear, share, talk about, contribute to.......
>
> I fear that the myth that young adults don't care to read could
> become true
> if the people who produce journalism act is if it is true. There
> is no
> shortage of evidence that this is a myth; the Harris Poll, for
> example,
> finds a significantly higher incidence of GenXers reading national
> newspapers than in the general population.
>
> Lots of well-educated people also say that poor people don't like
> to read,
> but there's no shortage of evidence to the contrary on this point,
> as well.
> For example, Wal-Mart is the fourth largest retailer of books, after
> Borders, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon. And sales of mass-market
> paperbacks
> have been growing for years.
>
> For decades well-educated people have also asserted that people
> won't read
> long stories in newspapers, especially working class people. But
> that's not
> true either. Donald Barlett's and James B. Steele's Philadelphia
> Inquirer
> series, "America: What Went Wrong?", consumed at least two full
> broadsheet
> pages a day for a week and squarely addressed the issues of working
> people
> -- the people who supposedly won't read long stories (or, more
> recently,
> supposedly won't read at all). When the Barlett-Steele series
> appeared the
> Inquirer's circulation shot up by 15,000 a day. When the paper made
> reprints of the series available, the lines outside the Inquirer
> building
> were so long the paper had to hire security guards to string velvet
> ropes to
> keep the lines orderly. The Inquirer couldn't produce the reprints
> fast
> enough, and gave away more than 200,000 of them. That was before
> the series
> was repackaged as a book that went to No. 1 on the New York Times
> best-seller list and sold more than 650,000 copies. The average
> best-seller
> sells a little over 100,000 copies, indicating that A:WWW? Spilled
> over from
> the usual middle-class book-buying crowd into people who don't buy
> many
> books -- the folks that the myth says won't read.
>
> It's my deep belief that people of all ages and socioeconomic
> strata will
> read eagerly if presented with articles that squarely address the
> issues
> that affect them directly, articles that are meaningful and
> relevant to
> their lives. And there's plenty of evidence to support this belief.
>
> The real problem is that very few news organizations publish
> articles for
> readers other than the affluent, middle-aged readers their advertisers
> crave. This discarding of all but the affluent readers is a
> journalistic
> disgrace and crisis of democracy. The challenge facing us is to
> find ways
> to bring quality journalism to everybody -- if we succeed, perhaps our
> enfeebled democracy will regain some of its strength.
>
> I addressed this topic more fully in my luncheon speech at the
> Media Giraffe
> Summit in Amherst in July; the text is posted on the Center for
> Citizen
> Journalism blog at
> http://citmedia.org/blog/2006/07/03/guest-posting-is-media-
> performance-democ
> racys-critical-issue/ .
>
> Tom Stites
> Publisher, UU World magazine
> Unitarian Universalist Association
> 25 Beacon Street
> Boston, MA 02108
>
> 617-948-6504
> 617-742-7025 (fax)
>
> www.uuworld.org
> www.uua.org
>
>
>
>
>
>

Re: [MGP-Forum Announce] Sony starts selling the Soney eBook reader: $349.00

> . . . why put 1,000 words into  
> text that work better as still photos with audio? Why try to explain  
> how the Space Shuttle docks with the International Space Station when  
> an animated graphic works better?

And I'm not objecting to multimedia.  My point of my post was to assert that lots of people would read journalism if it were meaningful to them, that reading is not only for educated people who are not young.

But reading does have deep value to democracy, which is what I care about most -- without it there will be no meaningful journalism for anybody, text, video, or multimedia.  

Here's a snip from my Media Giraffe Summit speech that addresses this:

In the 1980s the late Neil Postman wrote an enduringly important book called Amusing Ourselves to Death.  In it he says that Marshall McLuhan only came close to getting it right in his famous adage, that the medium is the message.  Postman corrects McLuhan by saying that the medium is the metaphor – a metaphor for the way we think.  Written narrative that people can read, Postman goes on, is a metaphor for thinking logically. And he says that image media bypass reason and go straight to the emotions. The image media are a metaphor for not thinking logically. Images disable thinking, so unless people read and use their reason democracy is disabled as well.

So I don’t care whether people read written narrative from newsprint or from a screen, and while participation in the news process is important it’s OK with me if people are passive receivers of written narrative that’s selected by editors. What matters is that they read news, that their reason is engaged, that they are equipped as well as they can be to be effective citizens.

I heartily commend Postman’s book to all who haven’t read it.  It is indeed enduringly important.

> We're entering a world of storytelling Zen: the story decides how it  
> wants to be told. Sometimes video. Sometimes still photos. Sometimes  
> audio. Sometimes graphics. Sometimes text. More than likely, some  
> combo of all. And, for journalism, the story is linked to people who  
> carry on the conversation and add to the story. Not elite at all.

Stories about policy issues and the economy and political struggles are best told in print, with graphic support, so that they can best engage the readers’ capacity for reason.  Abandoning politics, policy, and economics to the sound-bite vapidity of broadcast TV and the opinion spinners of cable news gets us the gutted democracy we have now.

I’m cheering for the emerging digital and participative media, hoping that their use spreads beyond the tiny elite who now takes part.  If that happens, it could be a real boost for democracy.

Tom

>>> Subject: Re: [MGP-Forum Announce] Sony starts selling the Soney  
>>> eBook reader:
>>> $349.00
>>>
>>> they'll have to market to the over-50 crowd, the only group that
>>> really wants to read newspapers. everyone under 30 wants to see,
>>> hear, share, talk about, contribute to.......
>>
>> I fear that the myth that young adults don't care to read could  
>> become true
>> if the people who produce journalism act is if it is true.  There  
>> is no
>> shortage of evidence that this is a myth; the Harris Poll, for  
>> example,
>> finds a significantly higher incidence of GenXers reading national
>> newspapers than in the general population.
>>
>> Lots of well-educated people also say that poor people don't like  
>> to read,
>> but there's no shortage of evidence to the contrary on this point,  
>> as well.
>> For example, Wal-Mart is the fourth largest retailer of books, after
>> Borders, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon.  And sales of mass-market  
>> paperbacks
>> have been growing for years.
>>
>> For decades well-educated people have also asserted that people  
>> won't read
>> long stories in newspapers, especially working class people.  But  
>> that's not
>> true either. Donald Barlett's and James B. Steele's Philadelphia  
>> Inquirer
>> series, "America: What Went Wrong?", consumed at least two full  
>> broadsheet
>> pages a day for a week and squarely addressed the issues of working  
>> people
>> -- the people who supposedly won't read long stories (or, more  
>> recently,
>> supposedly won't read at all).  When the Barlett-Steele series  
>> appeared the
>> Inquirer's circulation shot up by 15,000 a day.  When the paper made
>> reprints of the series available, the lines outside the Inquirer  
>> building
>> were so long the paper had to hire security guards to string velvet  
>> ropes to
>> keep the lines orderly.  The Inquirer couldn't produce the reprints  
>> fast
>> enough, and gave away more than 200,000 of them.  That was before  
>> the series
>> was repackaged as a book that went to No. 1 on the New York Times
>> best-seller list and sold more than 650,000 copies.  The average  
>> best-seller
>> sells a little over 100,000 copies, indicating that A:WWW? Spilled  
>> over from
>> the usual middle-class book-buying crowd into people who don't buy  
>> many
>> books -- the folks that the myth says won't read.
>>
>> It's my deep belief that people of all ages and socioeconomic  
>> strata will
>> read eagerly if presented with articles that squarely address the  
>> issues
>> that affect them directly, articles that are meaningful and  
>> relevant to
>> their lives.  And there's plenty of evidence to support this belief.
>>
>> The real problem is that very few news organizations publish  
>> articles for
>> readers other than the affluent, middle-aged readers their advertisers
>> crave.  This discarding of all but the affluent readers is a  
>> journalistic
>> disgrace and crisis of democracy.  The challenge facing us is to  
>> find ways
>> to bring quality journalism to everybody -- if we succeed, perhaps our
>> enfeebled democracy will regain some of its strength.
>>
>> I addressed this topic more fully in my luncheon speech at the  
>> Media Giraffe
>> Summit in Amherst in July; the text is posted on the Center for  
>> Citizen
>> Journalism blog at
>> http://citmedia.org/blog/2006/07/03/guest-posting-is-media-
>> performance-democ
>> racys-critical-issue/ .
>>
>> Tom Stites
>> Publisher, UU World magazine
>> Unitarian Universalist Association
>> 25 Beacon Street
>> Boston, MA 02108
>>
>> 617-948-6504
>> 617-742-7025 (fax)
>>
>> www.uuworld.org
>> www.uua.org
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Post mailing list
>>
>> http://mgp-forum.org/mailman/listinfo/post_mgp-forum.org
>

Sorry, but this device just doesn't do anything for me. In the 21st century, books, magazines, and newspapers will morph into totally multi-media content displayed on flexible sheets that make "reading" a truly multi-modal experience. The software and hardware for this experience is currently under development. We'll see it released in mass-marketed products within 3-5 years.

I agree that the Sony device is probably a dud, a transitional technology at
best. Twenty-five years ago the now-defunct Knight-Ridder was sinking
millions into a research shop in Colorado that was gearing up for what news
would be like when everybody was going around with devices such as these --
and the presumption was that it was going to happen any day. After a few
years of waiting, nothing happened, and K-R shut down its dream shop. And
now a quarter century has elapsed.

But I do think that some device will burst on the world one of these days
the way the Walkman did, or PDA did, or the cell phone did. But we ain't
seen it yet.

Whatever the medium, what really matters is the quality and character of
what people read and otherwise experience when using it. And therein lies a
huge challenge.

Tom

--
Tom Stites
Publisher, UU World magazine
Unitarian Universalist Association
25 Beacon Street
Boston, MA 02108

617-948-6504
617-742-7025 (fax)

www.uuworld.org
www.uua.org

> From: Stephen Wilmarth
> Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2006 08:24:44 -0500
> To:
> Subject: [MGP-Forum Announce] The perfect device for the 20th century book
> model....
>
>
> Sorry, but this device just doesn't do anything for me. In the 21st century,
> books, magazines, and newspapers will morph into totally multi-media content
> displayed on flexible sheets that make "reading" a truly multi-modal
> experience. The software and hardware for this experience is currently under
> development. We'll see it released in mass-marketed products within 3-5
> years.
>

> But I do think that some device will burst on the world one of these days
> the way the Walkman did, or PDA did, or the cell phone did. But we ain't
> seen it yet.
>

The Nokia 770 -- http://www.nokiausa.com/770 is close but not quite
"there" yet.

Aside from a sadly non-standard memory card slot, its only problems are
with software, and since it runs Linux and plenty of Linux junkies are
getting their hands on 770s, the software problems will be overcome
before long.

Two of my coworkers have tested 770s in various stages of development,
most recently in July. We've seen steady improvement.

Add a bluetooth keyboard, and a 770 can just about replace a reporter's
laptop. A little hacking, and it ought to be able to capture video from
any vidcam that will do USB2, although you will want the maximum 1 GB
memory card for video and will still cry about lack of storage unless
you do some sort of direct streaming (i.e. use the vidcam as webcam),
which ought to be possible.

It reads PDF and HTML, too, so it can also be a "book reader."

With this thing on the market, and similar devices on their way from
other manufacturers (and some new Nokia devices coming as well, one of
which has a built-in high-def vidcam), why would anyone want something
that's just a reader?

- Robin

Tom --

You're talking about the Roger Fidler digital tablet, as thin, flexible, and
high-res as a magazine, and so cheap that newspapers would give them away.
We're still waiting.

Not to blame this on Roger, who's a very sharp guy.

===
Dan Kennedy
Visiting Assistant Professor
School of Journalism, 102 Lake Hall
Northeastern University
Boston, MA 02115

(617) 373-5187
http://medianation.blogspot.com

On 9/30/06 1:54 PM, "tom stites" wrote:

> I agree that the Sony device is probably a dud, a transitional technology at
> best. Twenty-five years ago the now-defunct Knight-Ridder was sinking
> millions into a research shop in Colorado that was gearing up for what news
> would be like when everybody was going around with devices such as these --
> and the presumption was that it was going to happen any day. After a few
> years of waiting, nothing happened, and K-R shut down its dream shop. And
> now a quarter century has elapsed.
>
> But I do think that some device will burst on the world one of these days
> the way the Walkman did, or PDA did, or the cell phone did. But we ain't
> seen it yet.
>
> Whatever the medium, what really matters is the quality and character of
> what people read and otherwise experience when using it. And therein lies a
> huge challenge.
>
> Tom

It seems like we're getting distracted by the wonders of technology -- envisioning the right gizmo as a panacea to everything from declining literacy to declining newspaper subscriptions -- when the real concern is the purposes to which that gizmo is applied.

That's the defining issue of "New Media" in general: Intent. Media technologies are useful for whatever purpose they are competently put to. Commerce, politics, education, democracy -- all are contenders for our resources and attention, as producers, as audiences, as citizens.

The gizmo doesn't matter. Whatever it is, it's going to be cool and do all sorts of neat-o things, and then will become obsolete in five years (or less) as the next, smaller, more powerful gizmo comes along. Advanced technologies and sophisticated interactive software will not by themselves solve the problems of media today, just as the invention of blogging software didn't bring down Dan Rather. It was the way people used their blogs that made the difference.

It's vital that we as a community of media producers, advocates and critics avoid being distracted by this "gee whiz" enthusiasm for gizmos when we have deep, lasting issues of content quality and relevance to deal with.

As two of our Media Giraffe colleagues noted ...

Tish Grier:

>Well if there are bells and whistles that don't offer
>good information that people can trust and that is
>relevant what's the point?

Tom Stites:

>Whatever the medium, what really matters is the quality and character of
>what people read and otherwise experience when using it. And therein lies a
>huge challenge.
>Tom

Precisely.

I'm not worried about the medium or the technology -- innovation is largely a given, especially due to the open source nature of emerging media.

Nor am I worried about the economic survival of large media entities. They'll do fine, though the names, faces and products may evolve.

I find the real challenge of journalism in the 21st century -- and narrative media in general -- is content: How it is created or produced, and to what end it is applied.

At SFGate.com in the late '90s I was greatly impressed by the assemblage of resources put to the task of develop rich, interactive multimedia journalism. We had a cornucopia of text articles from the Chronicle and Examiner, and an endless video faucet from KRON-TV and BayTV cable. Ninety percent of it was repurposed, but still drew lots of traffic -- enough to make us the fourth largest newspaper website nationwide.

What ultimately provoked my resignation was the simple fact that SFGate.com was resolutely focused away from "serious" reporting (read: investigative, enterprise, hard news, etc.). If anything like that came down from one of the sources, fine. But any original material we produced was about culture, lifestyle, travel and sports, usually columns or features with heavy P.O.V.

Yes, those are staples, but they were also the absolute priority. What about the public health, environment and economy/labor beats? Stuff people *really do care about*, but which are more commercially "risky"?

What I wanted to see at SFGate.com was a commitment to that deeper sort of news coverage. A commitment by the publisher to go deep with important subjects, issues and ideas that don't get the ink -- or screen time -- they deserve.

Produce that kind of material, and let the richly interactive online medium coalesce and innovate *around* the content.

THEN you'll see news media no one will want to miss! Cultivate "audience" appetite and expectations, build traffic, open doors to dialogue and participation, and let it flourish.

I don't want to fall back on "If you build it, they will come," but, if you put well-crafted, compelling, relevant narratives in front of people through diverse media over time, you can build communities of interest and participation. (What they used to call a "readership" back in the olden days.)

There's lots of talent and lots of enthusiasm for this kind of work, but it's still simmering in the newsroom rank and file, and the media grassroots in general.

It has yet to percolate up to the level of a national-scale news publisher or network willing to take a financial risk on advertiser-unfriendly content.

That's where I see our opportunity here at Newsdesk.org. Now all we need is a million dollars!

Josh W.
--
Editor * Newsdesk.org

News You Might Have Missed:

Subscribe:

Great discussion... especially on a relaxed Saturday. I hope another
thousand words (fair warning) aren't enough to kill the conversation,
but I've been trying to sort out my own ideas on some of these issues
and the stream of consciousness here will help.

Getting to journalism from the eBook reader topic -- Electronic books
and electronic newspapers aren't the same thing. The book is linear (or
has been, mostly), while newspapers have always been hypertextual --
linking chunks of information by putting them side by side on a page or
adding a "see page 13" now and then, or using multi-deck heads and
summary leads for folks in even more of a hurry.

My 50+year-old eyes have read a dozen books from a Palm Treo or Palm
TX screen without a problem. But I don't read much *news* that way. I
appreciate Dave Winer's clean "river of news" (nytimesriver.com)
approach to putting headlines and summaries on itty bitty screens, but
the mechanics of scanning headlines and clicking links to stories,
waiting for them, then viewing them in small chunks on a Palm or phone
isn't for me. I'd rather have stories in context, with sidebars,
datelines, photos other cues.

Sony's jacket-pocket size screen might be enough, if it can be kept
free of intrusive ads (hardly likely), but I'd still look for a print
edition (or a printer) to follow more complicated stories. That's me.

"How *do* we get young people to read the news?" is another question.
I'm not sure putting it on a smaller screen is the answer, multimedia
screen or not.

My over-50 crowd are the kids that grew up learning to read from the
Sunday comics... and looking in the paper for their pictures from the
Scout Jamboree or County Fair... and listening to Mom tell Aunt Helen
what Dear Abby and the kids' daily horoscopes said that morning... and
(by junior high) delivering the paper for spending money... then (from
high school age on) scanning the headlines to find out what happened
yesterday, scanning the ads to see what's playing at the Bijou and
whether anyone is selling a two-tone '57 Chevy or a blue MG-B.

That *was* yesterday: The newspaper landing with a "plop" on the
doorstep, filling a variety of familiy "information needs," and then
protecting the floor from paint (or puppy) drippings. The experience is
still available, but kids who didn't grow up with it are hard to
convert. Having the paper as a childhood memory helped bring me back to
it after too-busy, too-distracted, too '60s, high school and college
years.

For some, the transition involves putting down roots in a community,
developing more interest in local taxes, road repairs, zoning cases,
schools and sewage problems. Some more responsible citizens don't need
as much of a push to take an interest in national politics,
environmental issues, international affairs or all the
consumer-lifestyle stuff in the paper.

Newspapers and the other media need to know what they do best, then go
do it. Provide short bites online; provide full-course meals in print;
supplement them with video, audio or animations when those are the best
ways to tell the story... but have that online storytelling also point
out the "added value" in the printed paper.

Tom mentioned Barlett's and Steele's Philadelphia Inquirer series,
which reminded me of the Philly.com dialogue between the author and
readers of the original "Black Hawk Down" series -- dialogue that added
to the story before it became a best-seller book and movie, and
multimedia that enhanced the online reading. (Original archived at
http://blackhawkdown.com)

Can an electronic edition be an effective marketing tool for a (maybe
not-daily) print newspaper's in-depth projects? Those broadsheet --or
even tabloid pages-- will always be easier to eyetrack across than a
book-sized screen. No scrolling or hypertext link is as quick as a
two-second flick of the eye back across a few columns when you want to
clarify a second reference in a long story or to check a voting-results
chart while reading an election story. Having a searchable copy of the
same text online makes up for one of print's shortcomings. Giving the
audience a choice of audio or video online can tell some stories
better.

What should journalism educators be focusing on?

* Clear, concise writing -- not long rambling discourses like this big
bite out of your e-mail reading time.

* Basic tools of the trade -- from the AP Stylebook to online research
and digital editing.

* Basic civics -- how things work, along with convincing students that
a democracy needs passionately independent watchdogs as well as
passionate partisan voices.

* Choice -- recognizing strong points and weak points of print and
digital media, how they can be complimentary, and how they have to
innovate to make up for their weaknesses. Daily and weekly papers can't
beat electronic media to breaking news, but they can devote resources
to depth coverage, especially local and state governments and
regionally powerful corporations. Online can be better at immediacy,
and it can offer space to many diverse voices, including those prone to
long rambling discourses.

For space-station docking, turn on the television or its live broadband
Web incarnation for live video and an animated analysis. The paper, on
the other hand, can run a two-foot-square graphic showing how all the
parts fit together, with detailed captions and sidebars telling how
much the thing cost, why it's important, and a full-page layout of crew
members' biographies.

Perhaps journalism schools should not just be teaching journalists how
to report and write -- they should be teaching "journalism
appreciation" to the audience, including appreciation of the strengths
of different media forms, along with healthy doses of both civics and
"media literacy" or "critical thinking." That means getting
universities to recognize three "journalism" tracks, not just
professional training and academic research (media effects, law,
history, public opinion etc.), but also a "liberal arts" or "semi-pro"
minor filled with information for "the former 'audience'" of active and
concerned readers and viewers, part of a pro/am conversation between
full-time journalists and those who have other ways of making a living,
but still see the need for an informed public.

So how do we get a younger generation into the tent at 21 if their
parents didn't bring them up making the association between newspapers
and "being informed"? "People don't read anymore" is a set of different
myths, easily disproved by best-seller statistics, but that's hard to
translate into stories about your local government. Maybe newspapers
should enlist Harry Potter as a paperboy, and get him to deliver
in-depth non-fiction at the same time, along with briefer local state
and national news.

Damn, I wish I'd known when I started this that I was going to finish
with "It'll take a magician."

Onward.

Bob Stepno
http://stepno.com
http://couranteer.com

On Sep 30, 2006, at 7:57 AM, tom stites wrote:

> > . . . why put 1,000 words into  
> > text that work better as still photos with audio? Why try to
> explain  
> > how the Space Shuttle docks with the International Space Station
> when  
> > an animated graphic works better?
>
> And I'm not objecting to multimedia.  My point of my post was to
> assert that lots of people would read journalism if it were meaningful
> to them, that reading is not only for educated people who are not
> young.
>
> But reading does have deep value to democracy, which is what I care
> about most -- without it there will be no meaningful journalism for
> anybody, text, video, or multimedia.  
>

> For some, the transition involves putting down roots in a community,
> developing more interest in local taxes, road repairs, zoning cases,
> schools and sewage problems. Some more responsible citizens don't need
> as much of a push to take an interest in national politics,
> environmental issues, international affairs or all the
> consumer-lifestyle stuff in the paper.
>

The problem in many smaller cities is that the local newspapers don't do
a very good job of covering local public affairs. I see my local
(Bradenton, FL) paper, The Herald, as a minimum-effort publication
that only covers obvious events such as council meetings, press
conferences, and auto accidents. The Herald-Tribune, in neighboring
Sarasota, is slightly better but no world-beater.

Worse, except for one reporter/columnist (Vin Mannix) at The Herald, the
two papers combined have less personality than one of my goldfish.
They're both chain-owned (The Herald by McClatchy, Herald-Tribune by
NYT), and they are about as much like real, locally-owned newspapers as
Burger King is like a real, locally-owned restaurant.

Why would a youngster growing up here or in another area with similarly
bland newspapers want to read (or work for) a newspaper when he or she
gets older?
> So how do we get a younger generation into the tent at 21 if their
> parents didn't bring them up making the association between newspapers
> and "being informed"?

First, newspapers need to give people a reason to read them. In the
Internet age, a small paper running 60% wire service copy can't compete
with websites run by big papers and TV outfits. Their niche is local
news, and they should be all over local happenings, not just reacting to
"official sources." That would make them a must-read for citizens of all
ages.

> "People don't read anymore" is a set of different
> myths, easily disproved by best-seller statistics, but that's hard to
> translate into stories about your local government. Maybe newspapers
> should enlist Harry Potter as a paperboy, and get him to deliver
> in-depth non-fiction at the same time, along with briefer local state
> and national news.

Or maybe use the narrative techniques all good fiction writers use.
Allow and encourage colorful writing. Build stories to strong
conclusions instead of letting them trail off, inverted pyramid-style.
If those Harry Potter novels were constructed like a typical, modern
newspaper story, how well would they sell?

An editor who worked with me more than I deserved back when I was
transitioning from fiction to non-fiction told me, "A real writer can
put out a compelling story about a blank, white wall."

Whatever. I subscribe to the local paper only out of inertia, and I
don't think I'm alone in doing this. Its circulation is up by perhaps 2%
in the last year (after dropping steadily for a number of years) in an
area where annual population growth is 10% or more. And since this is a
retirement haven, a high percentage of those new residents are from the
generations that were raised to believe reading the morning paper was an
essential part of the daily wake-up ritual. Apparently they don't see
The Herald as necessary to their lives. Sad.

Worse news for the local papers: I've run several "help wanted"
classifieds in both of them and gotten only unqualified applicants. I
put a free listing on Craigslist and got near-immediate responses from
at least five people worth my attention, one of whom was a true standout
(and now works for me). I'm getting ready to add another (probably
part-time) person by the end of the year. Obviously, I'll go with
Craigslist instead of a newspaper classified, not because of the money
difference -- which is tiny; what's $60 to a 130-person public company?
-- but because Craiglist gives me better results.

A final note: Our part of Florida has one of the country's lowest
Internet use rates even though broadband access is available all over
the area from a number of competing suppliers. We have a lot of retirees
around here who aren't interested in computers or the Internet, plus
some super-poverty. But even here, I think it's safe to say that the
vast majority of the 18-65 crowd that has enough spending money to be
newspaper subscribers also has Internet access.

- Robin

> > For some, the transition involves putting down
> roots in a community,
> > developing more interest in local taxes, road
> repairs, zoning cases,
> > schools and sewage problems. . . >
> The problem in many smaller cities is that the local
> newspapers don't do
> a very good job of covering local public affairs. ..

Putting down roots in a community is *very* important
for cultivating concern about what's happening. One
thing that might help local papers is to cultivate
journalists who are what colleges would call
"non-traditional age" who are interested in these
things rather than looking for the ambitious young
person to stay in the sleepy small town....

It often seems that adults look to youth to save
whatever is ailing rather than looking within their
own ranks to do something about the problem.

Yet the problem is also as Rob notes: the papers
don't do a good job of covering the local scene. The
major paper for the Hampden county region of Western
Mass often runs a high percentage of wire service
stories, a few local stories, and very little
state-level stories. Still, there is much better
hyper-local coverage in the three small free papers
for Chicopee than in the larger paper that covers the
county. Much of the local coverage is lost among the
wire service reprints.

Funny thing is, if the wire story is, say, a repring
to a story in the NYTimes, I often go online, back to
the orginal source, to read the entire story--the
paper prints abridged versions. It feels like the
wire stories are filler, as if they are some form of
advertising, rather than news.

>
> > So how do we get a younger generation into the
> tent at 21 if their
> > parents didn't bring them up making the
> association between newspapers
> > and "being informed"?
>

This may be why so many young people are more
interested in what's online an what they can download
than what's in print. If we look to the age group
that are now the parents of young people, we might
find that the shift away from newspapers started
before the advent of the internet.

As I've maintained, there are differences between the
Viet-Nam war-era boomers (those who got drafted) and
the post-Viet Nam war era boomers (those for whom the
draft no longer existed--the last 5 years of the
boom). This group of "straddlers" were the generation
that said "I want my M-TV!" and for whom the first
"Rock the Vote" campaign was designed to reach. There
was awareness back in '92 that a large sector of young
people weren't being reached through traditional
media.

>
> Or maybe use the narrative techniques all good
> fiction writers use.
> Allow and encourage colorful writing. Build stories
> to strong
> conclusions instead of letting them trail off,
> inverted pyramid-style.
> If those Harry Potter novels were constructed like a
> typical, modern
> newspaper story, how well would they sell?

But can this be done with the very dry stuff that
comes out of town council meetings without possibly
offending someone on the town council (if, perhaps, it
is remarked that said member is wearing an awful tie
or sweating profusely.)?

Town council members *might* put up with this from
someone who's not an "official" journalist, but will
they be as forgiving to someone who's on the local
newspaper's staff? Out here in W. Mass, where things
are *very* conservative, writing something of a "color
commentary" *might* get a reporter in hot water (that
is, unless an editor is willing to stand by that
reporter.)

Tish G.
http://media.corante.com
http://spap-oop.blogspot.com

I too have experimented with various mobile devices -- and have a new
phone with a little set of bookmarks, including Dave's rivers.

I like it. But the fact that I've been hearing about the e-book for so
long makes me wonder if it's like the flying car, or the pill that
provides complete nutrition for 24 hours: the reason they're not here is
because we don't really want them.

Sometimes it's hard to discern between things that need many refinements
over time to work and things that we like to think about but don't
really want.

Bob Stepno wrote:
> Great discussion... especially on a relaxed Saturday. I hope another
> thousand words (fair warning) aren't enough to kill the conversation,
> but I've been trying to sort out my own ideas on some of these issues
> and the stream of consciousness here will help.
>
> Getting to journalism from the eBook reader topic -- Electronic books
> and electronic newspapers aren't the same thing. The book is linear (or
> has been, mostly), while newspapers have always been hypertextual --
> linking chunks of information by putting them side by side on a page or
> adding a "see page 13" now and then, or using multi-deck heads and
> summary leads for folks in even more of a hurry.
>
> My 50+year-old eyes have read a dozen books from a Palm Treo or Palm
> TX screen without a problem. But I don't read much *news* that way. I
> appreciate Dave Winer's clean "river of news" (nytimesriver.com)
> approach to putting headlines and summaries on itty bitty screens, but
> the mechanics of scanning headlines and clicking links to stories,
> waiting for them, then viewing them in small chunks on a Palm or phone
> isn't for me. I'd rather have stories in context, with sidebars,
> datelines, photos other cues.
>
ml.org/thisislisa/

But the fact that I've been hearing about the e-book for so
> long makes me wonder if it's like the flying car, or the pill that
> provides complete nutrition for 24 hours: the reason they're not here is
> because we don't really want them.

Having yearned for a jet pack ever since I first saw one on 1960's tv, I'm
not sure what role demand plays in the progress of technology. But my
speculation about the ebook is that its delayed appearance as a medium of
mass communication is due to a mix of technological and cultural factors.
Perhaps the iPod had to be ushered in by the cultural and social practices
of Napster since the device was introduced along with iTunes. In other
words, the success of the iPod was determined not only by technology, but
also by potential users' existing relationship with available content.

The fax machine was originally invented in the 1850's and improved markedly
throughout the first half of the 20th century (see attached image if you
can), but it was not until the 1970's that it became ubiquitous in the
business world. By the 1980's, perhaps as a result of changing perceptions
of the image, our general approach to telecommunications, and evolving ways
of doing business, fax machines became common in American homes.

The ebook might be taking a similar path, but I also think that it will
blossom when those of us who are content providers stop trying to translate
written texts into digital contexts and instead, as was mentioned earlier,
allow content to dictate form. Thus the ebook won't be a book at all, but
will be a multimedia presentation with its own conventions, which means that
we have to invent, along with better technology, new ways to communicate
authority, expertise, trustworthiness, and all of the other values that were
folded into the publication of paper-based articles, essays, and books.

We all know that there is a vacuum in the mainstream press where these
values used to be--see, for an obvious example, Judith Miller whining about
the inaccuracy of bloggers who don't have editors to check their work.
However, there is also a gaping hole in academic/educational publishing now
that academics generally write to prove productivity rather than to make a
point, which has reduced most scholarship to deliberate unreadability and
irrelevance. So my Pollyannish conclusion is that the digital media that
will probably not replace but will join and, in some cases, eclipse books
and other written texts as authoritative means of communication are fairly
close at hand.

At least I hope so since publishing whatever it is that is coming down the
digital pike is what I plan to do over the next few years.

By the way, the pitfalls of cultural/technological expression were
illustrated in a pretty funny way in Sony's announcement of its reader: Dan
Brown and Tom Hanks appeared at the press conference to boost the DaVinci
Code as displayed on the new device, which just goes to show that even the
most promising multimedia productions can tank.

Susan

Susan Gallagher, Library Fellow
Political Science Department
UMASS Lowell
http://faculty.uml.edu/sgallagher

>I too have experimented with various mobile devices -- and have a new
> phone with a little set of bookmarks, including Dave's rivers.
>
> I like it. But the fact that I've been hearing about the e-book for so
> long makes me wonder if it's like the flying car, or the pill that
> provides complete nutrition for 24 hours: the reason they're not here is
> because we don't really want them.
>
> Sometimes it's hard to discern between things that need many refinements
> over time to work and things that we like to think about but don't
> really want.
>
>
>
>
> Bob Stepno wrote:
>> Great discussion... especially on a relaxed Saturday. I hope another
>> thousand words (fair warning) aren't enough to kill the conversation,
>> but I've been trying to sort out my own ideas on some of these issues
>> and the stream of consciousness here will help.
>>
>> Getting to journalism from the eBook reader topic -- Electronic books
>> and electronic newspapers aren't the same thing. The book is linear (or
>> has been, mostly), while newspapers have always been hypertextual --
>> linking chunks of information by putting them side by side on a page or
>> adding a "see page 13" now and then, or using multi-deck heads and
>> summary leads for folks in even more of a hurry.
>>
>> My 50+year-old eyes have read a dozen books from a Palm Treo or Palm
>> TX screen without a problem. But I don't read much *news* that way. I
>> appreciate Dave Winer's clean "river of news" (nytimesriver.com)
>> approach to putting headlines and summaries on itty bitty screens, but
>> the mechanics of scanning headlines and clicking links to stories,
>> waiting for them, then viewing them in small chunks on a Palm or phone
>> isn't for me. I'd rather have stories in context, with sidebars,
>> datelines, photos other cues.
>>
> ml.org/thisislisa/
>
>

Really interesting discussion.

I just got a response from a local high school senior I e-mailed two
weeks ago on the recommendation of his history teacher; I had made an
overture to the school to see if I could involve students in election
coverage. This is the only student the entire social studies
department could produce. I'm generally an idealist when it comes to
community newspapers, but I fear this speaks to the core of the issue
of why newspapers are losing readers.

> Dear Mr. Potter
>
> I am sorry to have replied to this so late, do to some
> miscomunication, I did not read your email until today. I would
> love to write a article for you're paper. Due to my busy scedule
> (forgive me, I've always had horrible spelling) it would be hard
> for me to meet you anywhere outside of school. If you have any time
> on tuesday, I am at mohawk regional until 8 pm. I would be
> interested in talking about what you had in mind. If you can not
> come to the school, give me a idea of when and where you would like
> to meet and I can see if its possible. Thank you for the great
> oppurtunity. If you are interested in reading somethign i wrote,
> there is a article by me out of the Mohawk Trail W.I.P (Work in
> Progress) which can be found on the Moahwk website. Good Evening.

Sic.

Jeff Potter, Editor
SHELBURNE FALLS INDEPENDENT
8 Deerfield Ave., Shelburne Falls, MA 01370
413-625-8297 / 413-303-9883 (direct)

Visit our new Web site: http://www.sfindependent.net

<This is the only student the entire social
studies   department could produce. I'm generally an idealist when
it comes to community newspapers, but I fear this speaks to the core of the
issue  of why newspapers are losing readers.>
 
Jeff's example illustrating why younger
readers/writers can't be recruited into newspaper culture is great.  The
student writes: "I did not read your email until today. I would  love
to write a article for you're paper. Due to my busy
scedule  (forgive me, I've always had
horrible spelling) [but I don't care enough about accuracy
to run spell check]  it would be hard  for me to meet you
anywhere outside of school."
 
Then he goes on to explain that he's at school
until 8:00pm, probably working on activities that don't involve
basic learning, which confirms what I see constantly among college
students: they are so busy with school, which has been reduced almost
exclusively to frenzied resume-building for future acceptance into other
institutions, that they have no time for education.  
 
Now, since my participation in this discussion is
keeping me from the ton of work I must complete this weekend, I have
to withdraw into drudgery.  Exchanging insight may be a pleasure,
but it does nothing for one's c.v.
 
Susan
 
Susan Gallagher, Library FellowPolitical Science DepartmentUMASS
Lowellhttp://faculty.uml.edu/sgallagher
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Potter/Shelburne Falls Independent"
<>
To: <>
Sent: Sunday, October 01, 2006 11:23
AM
Subject: Re: [MGP-Forum Announce] Sony starts
selling the Sony eBookreader: $349.00
> Really interesting discussion.> > I just got a
response from a local high school senior I e-mailed two  > weeks ago
on the recommendation of his history teacher; I had made an  >
overture to the school to see if I could involve students in election 
> coverage. This is the only student the entire social studies 
> department could produce. I'm generally an idealist when it comes
to  > community newspapers, but I fear this speaks to the core of
the issue  > of why newspapers are losing readers.>
>>  Dear Mr. Potter>>>> I am sorry to have
replied to this so late, do to some  >> miscomunication, I did
not read your email until today. I would  >> love to write a
article for you're paper. Due to my busy scedule  >> (forgive me,
I've always had horrible spelling) it would be hard  >> for me to
meet you anywhere outside of school. If you have any time  >> on
tuesday, I am at mohawk regional until 8 pm. I would be  >>
interested in talking about what you had in mind. If you can not 
>> come to the school, give me a idea of when and where you would
like  >> to meet and I can see if its possible. Thank you for the
great  >> oppurtunity. If you are interested in reading somethign
i wrote,  >> there is a article by me out of the Mohawk Trail
W.I.P (Work in  >> Progress) which  can be found on the
Moahwk website. Good Evening.> > > Sic.> >
Jeff Potter, Editor> SHELBURNE FALLS INDEPENDENT> 8 Deerfield
Ave., Shelburne Falls, MA 01370> 413-625-8297 / 413-303-9883
(direct)> > Visit our new Web site: http://www.sfindependent.net>
> > _______________________________________________> Post
mailing list> > http://mgp-forum.org/mailman/listinfo/post_mgp-forum.org

Susan's note is oh-so-painfully
true.
The mistakes students make in their e-mails often show
up in their more serious writing.
Last week, Sen. John Kerry was our guest in a video
conference Political Journalism class I do in collaboration with C-SPAN. Despite
widely publicizing the event, I had two guests: a reporter from the student
newspaper and someone from University Relations. Not one single additional
student found the time to participate in the two-way, live interactive
class.
Saturday night, as part of an excellent week-long
program at the university called "Fall for the Book," Kim Edwards spoke and read
from her No. 1 bestseller, "The Memory Keeper's Daughter." About 50 people
showed up (including my wife and I); only a couple were students (about 4,500
students live on campus among the 30,000 total student
body).
Most of our students work and find very little time
outside of the classroom for education. And as most of us know, much of a
student's best education in college takes place outside of the
classroom.

*************
Steve Klein
Coordinator and Professor,
Electronic Journalism Program
George Mason
University
Fairfax, VA 
22030
e-mail:
http://mason.gmu.edu/~sklein1/
 

From:
[mailto] On Behalf Of Susan E.
GallagherSent: Sunday, October 01, 2006 12:58 PMTo:
: Re: [MGP-Forum Announce] Sony starts
selling the Sony eBookreader:$349.00

<This is the only student the entire social
studies  department could produce. I'm generally an idealist when
it comes to community newspapers, but I fear this speaks to the core of the
issue  of why newspapers are losing readers.>
 
Jeff's example illustrating why younger
readers/writers can't be recruited into newspaper culture is great.  The
student writes: "I did not read your email until today. I would  love
to write a article for you're paper. Due to my busy
scedule  (forgive me, I've always had
horrible spelling) [but I don't care enough about accuracy
to run spell check]  it would be hard  for me to meet you
anywhere outside of school."
 
Then he goes on to explain that he's at school
until 8:00pm, probably working on activities that don't involve
basic learning, which confirms what I see constantly among college
students: they are so busy with school, which has been reduced almost
exclusively to frenzied resume-building for future acceptance into other
institutions, that they have no time for education.  
 
Now, since my participation in this discussion is
keeping me from the ton of work I must complete this weekend, I have
to withdraw into drudgery.  Exchanging insight may be a pleasure,
but it does nothing for one's c.v.
 
Susan
 
Susan Gallagher, Library FellowPolitical Science DepartmentUMASS
Lowellhttp://faculty.uml.edu/sgallagher
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Potter/Shelburne Falls Independent"
<>
To: <>
Sent: Sunday, October 01, 2006 11:23
AM
Subject: Re: [MGP-Forum Announce] Sony starts
selling the Sony eBookreader: $349.00
> Really interesting discussion.> > I just got a
response from a local high school senior I e-mailed two  > weeks ago
on the recommendation of his history teacher; I had made an  >
overture to the school to see if I could involve students in election 
> coverage. This is the only student the entire social studies 
> department could produce. I'm generally an idealist when it comes
to  > community newspapers, but I fear this speaks to the core of
the issue  > of why newspapers are losing readers.>
>>  Dear Mr. Potter>>>> I am sorry to have
replied to this so late, do to some  >> miscomunication, I did
not read your email until today. I would  >> love to write a
article for you're paper. Due to my busy scedule  >> (forgive me,
I've always had horrible spelling) it would be hard  >> for me to
meet you anywhere outside of school. If you have any time  >> on
tuesday, I am at mohawk regional until 8 pm. I would be  >>
interested in talking about what you had in mind. If you can not 
>> come to the school, give me a idea of when and where you would
like  >> to meet and I can see if its possible. Thank you for the
great  >> oppurtunity. If you are interested in reading somethign
i wrote,  >> there is a article by me out of the Mohawk Trail
W.I.P (Work in  >> Progress) which  can be found on the
Moahwk website. Good Evening.> > > Sic.> >
Jeff Potter, Editor> SHELBURNE FALLS INDEPENDENT> 8 Deerfield
Ave., Shelburne Falls, MA 01370> 413-625-8297 / 413-303-9883
(direct)> > Visit our new Web site: http://www.sfindependent.net>
> > _______________________________________________> Post
mailing list> > http://mgp-forum.org/mailman/listinfo/post_mgp-forum.org

Hi Friends,
I am a retired librarian who has constantly been faced with the
"computers will replace books" argument especially when I was building
a major addition to my library. Here is my take on it. Each new media
is suppose to wide out all others, TV would end radio, TV would
destroy movies, the Internet will wipe out print, etc. No media
really goes away. My guess is that most information will be delivered
electronically, but people will still like print for stories (fiction,
biography etc.) for a long time. The book has some really great
features and doesn't need batteries or an outlet.

I've watched the ebook development for many years, and often think
prognosticators have forgotten the intimate tactil experience of
reading print.
However, I have always loved newspapers and hoped the print version
would always be around. Now sometimes I find myself reading the
NYTimes on line when my print copy is on the table beside me. So what
do I know?

Meredith McCulloch

On 10/1/06, Jeff Potter/Shelburne Falls Independent
wrote:
> Really interesting discussion.
>
> I just got a response from a local high school senior I e-mailed two
> weeks ago on the recommendation of his history teacher; I had made an
> overture to the school to see if I could involve students in election
> coverage. This is the only student the entire social studies
> department could produce. I'm generally an idealist when it comes to
> community newspapers, but I fear this speaks to the core of the issue
> of why newspapers are losing readers.
>
> > Dear Mr. Potter
> >
> > I am sorry to have replied to this so late, do to some
> > miscomunication, I did not read your email until today. I would
> > love to write a article for you're paper. Due to my busy scedule
> > (forgive me, I've always had horrible spelling) it would be hard
> > for me to meet you anywhere outside of school. If you have any time
> > on tuesday, I am at mohawk regional until 8 pm. I would be
> > interested in talking about what you had in mind. If you can not
> > come to the school, give me a idea of when and where you would like
> > to meet and I can see if its possible. Thank you for the great
> > oppurtunity. If you are interested in reading somethign i wrote,
> > there is a article by me out of the Mohawk Trail W.I.P (Work in
> > Progress) which can be found on the Moahwk website. Good Evening.
>
>
> Sic.
>
> Jeff Potter, Editor
> SHELBURNE FALLS INDEPENDENT
> 8 Deerfield Ave., Shelburne Falls, MA 01370
> 413-625-8297 / 413-303-9883 (direct)
>
> Visit our new Web site: http://www.sfindependent.net
>
>

Cross-posted for Art Clifford at UMass -- bill densmore

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2006 10:50:03 -0400
From: Art Clifford
To:
Subject: [MGP-Forum Announce] e books are alive and well on campus

Folks,

I've been reading the dialogue regarding e books and the Sony reader with
some interest. I and several of my colleagues have been using e books in
our courses for the last year and we find them enormously useful. Students
don't have to pay money for expensive texts such as Melvin Mencher's classic
newswriting tome, and they don't have to carry the book around, store it,
and later try to sell it.

Our students currently have access to about 15,000 e books on NetLibrary.com
(you should visit that site, you can register and access some free books).
We also have temporary access to a much larger library of e books through an
organization called ebrary. Ebrary is the easiest to use, biggest, and, of
course most expensive. Their business model works out to be about $2 per
student for the university library, however. It's a hit -- with the courses
that have instructors who use it in their classes.

I may have been motivated to use e books partly because I have some
international students and GIs who are overseas. Getting books to those
folks can take three weeks, or more and that's a major problem for distance
learning students.
As distance learning grows in popularity, so will the use of e books, e
periodicals, and newspapers online.

Remember, when the Web started being used by non-scientists in 1993,
everyone looked at it like it was a toy with only a marginal future for
academe, or anything else. It took a couple of years for the
commercialization to start and the growth of the Web after 1996 became
almost exponential. Why? Because college students with Ethernet connections
became users and began developing new uses for the Web (such as Google).
College is where to watch if you want to see how e books progress. And,
they will.
Art
--
Arthur S. Clifford
Lecturer in Online Journalism
University of Massachusetts
57 Morgan Circle
Amherst, MA 01002
413 549-3886

"I don't think the intelligence reports are all
that hot. Some days I get more out of the
New York Times." -- JFK

First, I want to thank everyone who is still on the MGP-Forum
Announcement list even though it has become a full-blown discussion
list. And I further, personally, apologize to those who are still on
because of difficulty unsubscribing.

Second, I want solicit people's opinions on how this /should/ have
worked, and how to rescue the two goals: the ability to make occasional
announcements to your fellow participants, and the ability to engage in
excellent discussion with those willing to put in the time.

A.) Would you like to be added to the discussion list, to work like
this has?

B.) Should the the announcement list remain open to all participants,
but policed when discussion starts? Should Bill Densmore moderate it?
In either case, *what should be the guidelines for announcements*?

C.) Any other thoughts or venting on this experience you want to unload
on me (including unsubscribe requests and what conditions would have to
be met to add you back to an announcement list). (I very much want to
create - or pay others to create - software that would allow people to
easily set their own threshold of involvement and have 'importance'
decisions made democratically, but the technological options right now
are pretty much what we have-- for horizontal communication, sadly,
http://mgp-forum.org/ is cutting edge.)

PLEASE respond *directly to me* at (cc Bill Densmore at
or even reply to if
you choose) but please spare the long-suffering folks on the
announcement (") list.

Thank you greatly for your participation and/or patience,
sincerely yours,

benjamin melançon
member, Agaric Design Collective
http://AgaricDesign.com - "Open Source Web Development"
My cell: 1-508-737-0582

P.S. Third, I wanted to join the excellent discussion, but it seems
counterproductive to my main goal here. In two sentences: Why would
normal people (not us junkies) want to get daily news, in any form, that
either isn't relevant to their lives and struggles or presents all
events as beyond their control? Objective news would recognize the
problems we face and acknowledge that only people working together will
solve many of them, and treat readers as potential active participants
in shaping reality. Responses to please!

Jane Stevens wrote:
> I'm not objecting to reading at all. But why put 1,000 words into
> text that work better as still photos with audio?

Speed. I read ~3000 words per minute, and most people talk at around 100
WPM. Therefore, unless I'm driving or doing something else that occupies
my eyes but leaves my ears at least partly free, reading gtets
information into my brain 30 times faster than listening. Even someone
who reads at 300 WPM is taking in text info three times as fast as audio
info.

Plus there's the linearity/non-linearity factor: It's easier to flip a
few pages back in a book, or scan 20 lines up in a newspaper story, than
it is to root through an audio (or video) file for the words you want to
go over again.
> Fiction, especially, will remain as it is. Much nonfiction
> can probably stand to lose some words to photos, video clips, audio.
>

Fiction has already changed. TV sitcoms and dramas have replaced short
stories as our most popular narrative styles.

As far as non-fiction moving toward mixed-media, I agree. I'm shooting
more video and typing less these days, but my video delivery tends to be
in the form of short clips embedded in a "wrapper" text story rather
than as standalone pieces.
> We're entering a world of storytelling Zen: the story decides how it
> wants to be told. Sometimes video. Sometimes still photos. Sometimes
> audio. Sometimes graphics. Sometimes text. More than likely, some
> combo of all. And, for journalism, the story is linked to people who
> carry on the conversation and add to the story. Not elite at all.

Yeah. We'll see how it all plays out. People like me (no degree, but
wide range of knowledge and experience) are not welcome in today's
corporate newsrooms. And when you want to get the "real" lowdown on why
Jamal shot Andrea, you're still better off lean against the wall along
Martin Luther King and share a 40 or two with a couple of guys, using
reporting tools no more intimidating than a pen and notepad than
pointing a vidcam at the police spokesbeing's face at a news conference.

Ditto talking to police, soldiers, cabbies, and other blue-collar types
likely to be suspicious about "college kid reporters."

I find it amusing/amazing that I am 100% up to date on our local police
force's contract negotiations with the city (Bradenton, FL) but that I
haven't read a word about these negotiations in either of our local
papers and, worse - cops I talk to tell me no reporters have tried to
talk to them about salary matters, and that they probably wouldn't talk
to reporters about it anyway, because (typical statement), "They aren't
like you, Rob. They come here as like a stop in their careers and only
write about police if they have something bad to say about us."

That's enough typing for the morning. I need to grab my new HD vidcam
and go watch a couple of local candidates campaign door-to-door. No one
else around here covers the grunt work of trying to get into office, so
that leaves it to me. I'll have a nice little mini-documentary about
campaigning on my site -- roblimo.com -- after the November election.

Robin 'Roblimo' Miller
Editor in Chief, OSTG
Bradenton, Fleriduh

The New York Times launched the beta of their portable
reader this week...check out what Jack Shafer said
about it in Slate

http://www.slate.com/id/2149888

The Los Angeles Times also launched a reader. I'm
going to have to go thru my email to find the link
that explains both launches...if I can find it. I read
so much on this stuff that I tend to lose track of
links...

I have to agree with Tom, though, about the myth that
young people *today* don't really want to read
newspapers--I was a young person in the early '80's.
We were the most apathetic end of the baby boom,
rarely voting, never reading newspapers, etc. (I have
a high-school newspaper article from 1979 that decries
our apathy...it's an interesting time-piece)

Many young people who hit high school and college in
the post-Viet Nam war era didn't read newspapers,
weren't politically involved, and didn't care about
politics. We didn't care about high school football
or homecoming dances either. There weren't huge groups
involved in campus democrat *or* republican groups.
The reason for this? The big hippie party was
over--nothing to protest, nothing to fight *for* nor
fight *against.* The war was over, Title IX had been
passed, and everybody was partying at Studio 54.
There were the hippies and disco people to rebel
against though--and we had a great time doing that...
by being completely and utterly apathetic when it came
to the stuff our older brothers and sisters (not our
parents) said was incredibly important.

Think about it.

So, today's youth's disinterest in the news is
probably nothing really new when you measure it
against those of us who were non-geek, hip young
20-somethings in the 1980's and NOT against the Viet
Nam war generation. (I wish I had the time to dig up
the stats for comparison...but that would take a grant
for research)

but I digress...

That many young people today say they get their news
in electronic form is, perhaps, a huge leap from 20-or
so years ago.

Yet when there is disinterest, it more than likely
comes from the news itself, not the way it is
delivered, being irrelavent to young people's
experience...which is the same as in the post-VN era.
Should newspapers be running after youth with such
ferocity by offering more electronic bells and
whistles?

Well if there are bells and whistles that don't offer
good information that people can trust and that is
relavent what's the point? Should newspapers begin to
cater more towards young people's tastes? Honestly,
that'd be just as foolish as directing a newspaper's
content--both online and off--to a certain
socio-economic group (as Tom has pointed out before.)

Newspapers are more than youth entertainment devices.
They serve a large sector of the populace, not just
the young, and will continue to fail if the
information is not accurate, trustworthy and relavent
to the world we all live in(as opposed to the world of
our specific age demographic, which we eventually
leave.)

As for e-Books...I see them as an extension of audio
books--another medium. Not a bad thing, but not nec. a
complete replacement. I prefer old-fashioned dead-tree
medium for serious reading. I wonder and worry about
what might happen somewhere down the line if something
happens where we do not have ready access to
electricity or the internet and both become too
costly. Check out this piece in the NYTimes on how
difficult it is to access the internet in rural New
England, and Verizon's possible sale of telephone
lines if you think it's not possible:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/technology/28vermont.html?_r=1&adxnnl=...

believe it or not, in many rural W.Mass towns, it is
impossible to get either DSL or broadband. If all
books become electronic, the access to knowledge and
information in rural areas could become very
difficult. Think of the consequences to young people
growing up in those regions...

Perhaps it is best for us to always keep in mind there
are not only other age demographics out there besides
youth, but also that access to information, even in
this country, may be very unequal even today.

Tish G.

--- tom stites wrote:

> >
> > they'll have to market to the over-50 crowd, the
> only group that
> > really wants to read newspapers. everyone under 30
> wants to see,
> > hear, share, talk about, contribute to.......
>
> I fear that the myth that young adults don't care to
> read could become true
> if the people who produce journalism act is if it is
> true. There is no
> shortage of evidence that this is a myth; the Harris
> Poll, for example,
> finds a significantly higher incidence of GenXers
> reading national
> newspapers than in the general population.
>
> Lots of well-educated people also say that poor
> people don't like to read,
> but there's no shortage of evidence to the contrary
> on this point, as well.
> For example, Wal-Mart is the fourth largest retailer
> of books, after
> Borders, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon. And sales of
> mass-market paperbacks
> have been growing for years.
>
> For decades well-educated people have also asserted
> that people won't read
> long stories in newspapers, especially working class
> people. But that's not
> true either. Donald Barlett's and James B. Steele's
> Philadelphia Inquirer
> series, "America: What Went Wrong?", consumed at
> least two full broadsheet
> pages a day for a week and squarely addressed the
> issues of working people
> -- the people who supposedly won't read long stories
> (or, more recently,
> supposedly won't read at all). When the
> Barlett-Steele series appeared the
> Inquirer's circulation shot up by 15,000 a day.
> When the paper made
> reprints of the series available, the lines outside
> the Inquirer building
> were so long the paper had to hire security guards
> to string velvet ropes to
> keep the lines orderly. The Inquirer couldn't
> produce the reprints fast
> enough, and gave away more than 200,000 of them.
> That was before the series
> was repackaged as a book that went to No. 1 on the
> New York Times
> best-seller list and sold more than 650,000 copies.
> The average best-seller
> sells a little over 100,000 copies, indicating that
> A:WWW? Spilled over from
> the usual middle-class book-buying crowd into people
> who don't buy many
> books -- the folks that the myth says won't read.
>
> It's my deep belief that people of all ages and
> socioeconomic strata will
> read eagerly if presented with articles that
> squarely address the issues
> that affect them directly, articles that are
> meaningful and relevant to
> their lives. And there's plenty of evidence to
> support this belief.
>
> The real problem is that very few news organizations
> publish articles for
> readers other than the affluent, middle-aged readers
> their advertisers
> crave. This discarding of all but the affluent
> readers is a journalistic
> disgrace and crisis of democracy. The challenge
> facing us is to find ways
> to bring quality journalism to everybody -- if we
> succeed, perhaps our
> enfeebled democracy will regain some of its
> strength.
>
> I addressed this topic more fully in my luncheon
> speech at the Media Giraffe
> Summit in Amherst in July; the text is posted on the
> Center for Citizen
> Journalism blog at
>
http://citmedia.org/blog/2006/07/03/guest-posting-is-media-performance-d...
> racys-critical-issue/ .
>
> Tom Stites
> Publisher, UU World magazine
> Unitarian Universalist Association
> 25 Beacon Street
> Boston, MA 02108
>
> 617-948-6504
> 617-742-7025 (fax)
>
> www.uuworld.org
> www.uua.org
>
>
>
>
>
>

As an old guard, hardcore geek, nestled between the over-50 crowd and the
under 30's (although rapidly approaching the over-50 crowd), I've always
been interested in eBooks.

I do wonder who the target demographic really will be. As a techie tool, it
would seem as if it would appeal more to the under 30 crowd. Yet Jane is
right in talking about how the under 30 demographic wants more multimedia
and interaction. Now, if you can cross an iPod, an eBook, a Gameboy and
interface it with FaceBook, you might have something.

As to the over 50 demographic, I am dubious. My mother loves to reads, but
won't use much for new technology. Her palsy is bad enough so that she can
still hold hardcovers, but trying to push some buttons or touch the screen
in the right place to select a book, etc, just won't happen.

On top of that, earlier this month, my wife, no where near the over-50
crowd, contracted Lyme disease. For the past few weeks, she has not had the
energy to do much other than sit in bed and read. She's tried to use the
computer, but it hurt her eyes. I imagine she wouldn't have had much use
for an eBook.

Beyond that, when I've used my laptop at the beach, like I said, I'm an old
guard hardcore geek, I've often found the screen hard to read, and beach
reading is one of those special reading times, so I worry about eBooks
there.

Yeah, I might be wrong, but it seems like eBooks needs to find its niche,
and it hasn't yet.

My two cents.

Aldon

P.S. My wife is doing a lot better now.

P.P.S. That said, we are going to run out and pickup Second Hand Smoke by
Karen E. Olson for her to read this weekend. Check out Paul Bass' review at
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/Arts/archives/arts_entertainment/book...

I'm over 50 and I want one.
Just to emphasize one thing: the Sony Reader (and another recent
introduction called the Iliad, by the Belgian company Irex, an offshoot of
Phillips) use an E-paper screen (see www.eink.com), which is not a standard
"backlit" computer screen, but uses reflected light and has a very sharp
resolution similar to printed paper. 7000 page views per battery charge
means you can read for weeks or months without having to plug the thing in.
This is not like trying to read a book on your PDA.

<These sort discussions about how Johnny doesn't spell check, Susie
doesn't care about civics and everyone is too busy padding their resumes to
actually learn anything really frustrate me. >

 
My
complaints really aren't useless hand-wringing.  Literacy is
declining among college students and, as everyone who grades term papers
knows, students who can write a coherent paragraph are increasingly
rare.  While lots of students can earn high scores on video games and
standardized tests, most of my students wouldn't get Aldon's reference to
Robert Kennedy and have never heard of George Bernard Shaw.  You don't
have to be elitist to lament this level of impoverishment.  As a high
school drop out who grew up in an exceedingly ugly virtually book-less town in
NJ, I can't help but sense my students' depth of cultural and educational
deprivation.  
 
They
certainly aren't dumber than the baby boomers who came before them, but along
with much less time and much less financial aid, they have almost no
opportunity to ask, why not? as Aldon suggests. 
 
I
have no cure for the cynicism that seems to pervade the flat, hypersexualized,
buzz-filled blur in which many of my students seem to live, but I wouldn't
insult them by yammering about civics when they don't know what to make of
their sisters or cousins or high school friends shipping off to
Iraq.
 
What
kills me is that we've made such a mess of things in politics, education,
economic opportunity--you name it--and then we talk about taking direction
from students themselves.  But without pretending to make more than a
dent in these immensely complex problems, I think we owe it to them to at
least try to provide them with better ways of learning, and we may be
able to do that if we figure out how to use technology to convey significant
historical events, works of art, music, literature, and political
thought.    
 
I
don't know.  The news is so bad these days that whatever idealism I might
have remaining sounds too much like schmaltz.  Still, having had the
experience, I can't help dreaming that we might be able to turn education back
into liberation, at least for some students, instead of subjecting them to
more unfreedom, which is how most of them seem to think of
school.
 
Sorry if this seems dark.  I'm writing this note as an
interlude--more procrastination--in grading the latest round of assignments
sent in by my online students.
 
Susan
 

Susan Gallagher, Library FellowPolitical Science DepartmentUMASS
Lowellhttp://faculty.uml.edu/sgallagher