Comments on: Paywalls, Twitter, and Tiger Woods: The changing face of Internet journalism

By: Danny Bloom

Danny Bloom — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:42:24 +0000

chris…… I found this cartoon about such snailpapers here today. Is the New York Times print edition a snailpaper too? That is debatable, of course.

By: dan e bloom

dan e bloom — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 08:17:25 +0000

Chris, here it is re . click on websitye linkl
and ask Paul he may use it somehow too. ask first \

danny

A friend of mine in Toronto is creating a cartoon right now, as we speak, at this very moment in Intenet Time, about the very issues you discussed above. When she has finished it, may I send it to you here to use an illustration in the future for one of your new posts next week? Sometimes a cartoon says it all. Wait a day or two and i will send it. May I?

By: Tracy Falbe

Tracy Falbe — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:29:29 +0000

I’m amused by the notion that paying Rupert Murdoch for news content will protect you from “shoddy, propagandist ranting.”

By: David Crotty

David Crotty — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:26:32 +0000

Twitter is indeed proving invaluable in letting us know immediately about important things like Tiger Woods’ serious injuries or Jeff Goldblum’s death. Clearly, the public can not wait 30 whole minutes to find out important accurate information like this that will have a deep and immediate impact on their lives.

By: pond

pond — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:09:13 +0000

I agree with Steve Jordan’s comment. For instance, you write:

“He rebuts the idea that traditional media takes longer in order to do more fact-checking, and notes that when shocking events happen, people want facts as soon as possible—even if they have not been checked yet.

“As an example, Siegler cites Cronkite’s reading out unconfirmed information on the air in the wake of the Kennedy shooting. The public did not care that the information was unconfirmed; they still wanted to know it right away.”

—but you are assuming that the ‘facts’ are true. What if they are not? Have you never come across a tweet or even a blog post that was a hoax, false, and ‘unverified’?

In CNN’s defense, I might say that very early on a Saturday morning, well before dawn on a holiday weekend, one of the bureau’s skeleton staff found the tweet and took the time to call the appropriate police department. Of course this department is getting swamped with calls from all over the country (maybe the world) and THEY also only have a skeleton crew working; the publicity officers of course don’t work at 4 am weekends.

And the complaint is that it took the CNN staff 45 minutes to make the call, check to see if the tweet was telling the truth, and try to dig out any more information (which they failed to do).

By: Greg Schofield

Greg Schofield — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:08:25 +0000

Murdock’s news may not fit the picture of a verifiable source, or indeed really a newspaper judged against quality papers. I would rather have the news from eyewitnesses then regurgitated press releases — but it is all an aside from the main point.

Paying is important authors need to be paid and a good piece of real journalism is worth paying for.

Micropayments can do this, but nothing can save bad commercial newspapers and good local ones. The current knee-jerk response of retreating behind pay walls without a viable micropayment system, is self-defeating. I doubt the Murdock empire will weather the coming economic shakedown.

Google’s micropayment system, or anyone else’s that is truly micro based (with disbursement features) is needed real soon. Paypal. which looks the best of the lot is not a true micropayements system (5cents + 5%, is not small enough), somone needs to tale the step forward and soon.

By: Chris Meadows

Chris Meadows — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 06:12:57 +0000

Sure, I’d enjoy seeing it.

By: Danny

Danny — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:47:53 +0000

Chris, very very good post, all of it! Well said. This is why “snailpapers” are soon going to be a thing of the past. They are going the way of the dodo bird, the dinosaurs. A friend of mine in Toronto is creating a cartoon right now, as we speak, at this very moment in Intenet Time, about the very issues you discussed above. When she has finished it, may I send it to you here to use an illustration in the future for one of your new posts next week? Sometimes a cartoon says it all. Wait a day or two and i will send it. May I?

By: Steve Jordan

Steve Jordan — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:32:34 +0000

The key to the online news services is to prove their facts are verified. That is their best resource.

As kewl as it may be to get fast data from Twitter, if it’s not verified, or if the source isn’t an “expert” on whatever they’re reporting, I don’t need that static. I want real news. When I want rumors and innuendo, I’ll go to a gossip site. Or Fox.

If the online services can’t manage to capitalize on quality newscasting, they ought to go under.