This Blog considers assisted suicide/euthanasia, bioethics, human cloning, biotechnology, radical environmentalism, and the dangers of animal rights/liberation. My views expressed here, as in my books and other writings, reflect my understanding that the philosophy of human exceptionalism is the bedrock of universal human rights. Or, to put it another way: human life matters. (The opinions expressed here are my own and not necessarily those of any organization with which I am affiliated.)
We need our newspapers!
The problem is the quality of the editors:
The problem is the quality of the reporters:
The problem is the quality of the public:
When transhumanism becomes routine:
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 11:10 AM
4 Comments
I am a Senior Fellow in Human Rights and Bioethics at the Discovery Institute and the author of 12 books, including A Rat Is A Pig Is A Dog Is A Boy, which is relevant to the issues considered by this blog.
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4 Comments:
No, the "problem," if there is one, is the Internet. Most of the stuff I see in the daily paper (and I do subscribe) has already been available on line.
However, dire doom was also predicted from TV news, and then from 24-hour news/weather/sports, and then when Scott Adams put Dilbert on-line for free. (Haven't seen "transhumanism" blamed anywhere but here.) All led to changes, none killed the papers.
There's no question newspapers have to adapt. Personally my paper's best value is as a central collection agency (or filter) for local and national news. It's how I find out about things that I later look up online. The papers can be smaller and cheaper and still do all that.
And even if they're replaced it may not be so bad. Certainly we can do without the massive contribution to the waste stream both from paper manufacturing and newspaper disposal. The trick is to find an economic model that provides the content, preferably with some kind of (yeah, yeah, I know) ethical and journalistic standards.
Padraig: That too is part of the problem, addressed in the post about newspapers that I linked. The problem is, once the newspapers go under, there will be no free internet newspapers to read, and I will sure be hampered in my work.
An all on-line media sounds interesting, but there is no way to make money on it. On line revenue is poor--particularly with Craigslist and others offering free classifieds.
Thanks for subscribing though. We need more like you.
I think the bias, and that a lot of the papers are mostly reprinted AP stories, hurts them a lot.
The advantage the newsblogs I read have is that they take information from a lot of sources and put it together, rather than just reprinting what they got off the line.
The "gay elephant" story is a good example- 90% of the information you'd find by google news was identical, down to only quoting half of a very relevant question. (First part: hey, we didn't pay {big money} to have a gay elephant. Second part: how are we supposed to grow a herd with an animal that won't breed? When you add in part two, part one makes a LOT more sense, but removes the "big story" aspect of "gee, look at this homophobic idiot.")
Ten minutes worth of research would've found that the zoo's statement that elephants weren't old enough to breed until they were 14 to be untrue for the species of elephant in question, barring mistreatment, or that the elephant in question had been moved between zoos three times in the last five years because of his violent tendencies, so maybe the zoo was making a CYA statement. I didn't even bother to look into the party of the politician in question, so I don't know if the wide range of statements on what they may or may not believe were accurate or not.
Some folks like what I think of as "top of the hour" type news, short and to the point and here's the weather; some-- like me-- digress to a crazy extent, and basically want to know "sez who"?
I love newspapers when they're done right-- you get a wide range of information, there's generally some local content, and you can find stuff outside of your normal interests.
When the bias is reflexive and down-right insulting, when the spelling and grammar wouldn't hold up to a fifth grader's standards, when the research is nonexistent, when sites have entire sections on how ignorant an entire business is on a pretty basic topic.... I don't buy that paper.
I don't buy many papers, these days. Most of those I know who do subscribe, subscribe to papers with another purpose-- like the Capital Press, an ag paper, or the WSJ.
There is nothing like holding a newspaper in one's hand. The problem isn't just the internet, it's what happened to newspapers and the news media in general after reporting became "journalism" and instinctive talent was replaced by what they get taught in journalism school, and there started being too many Democrats, and there was Watergate. The field hasn't been fit to respect since Eisenhower's day.
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