Comm455/History of Journalism

One of the major points I make in History of Journalism: From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg (Comm455, fall semester, T/R 10:30 a.m.) is the connection between the invention of the printing press and the social media revolution today. Here’s a video about Jeff Jarvis’s new Kindle Single, “Gutenberg the Geek,” and an interview with Jarvis on Big Think about his essay.

I recently read a post on Mashable about a new film that is set to be released on YouTube. The film is the product of Ron Howard and his daughter, Bryce Dallas Howard. It is inspired by 8 photos selected by Ron from a photography contest sponsored by Canon.

This whole concept — the film’s inspiration, the way it is being released — is so interactive and really shows how the Internet can be used in incredibly creative and thoughtful ways. The photography contest, Imagina8ion, had 100,000 entries from photographers of all ages and skill levels. Today it is possible to enter a contest, and thanks to the power of the Internet, be in a Ron Howard film.

The film is being released on YouTube for a weekend only, but completely free. I think this is a great way to reach a huge audience and generate good buzz about the film. Howard is using the Internet to his advantage and to the film’s advantage, since it probably wouldn’t have gotten as much publicity otherwise.

Another cool tidbit about the film — it was shot using only Canon cameras and DSLRs! It is amazing to think, but DSLRs today can record cinema-quality video. More and more movies are being shot like this, as the cameras are smaller and easier to maneuver.

In the wake of the death of Steve Jobs, many investors, enthusiasts, and simple consumers have voiced their concerns over the direction that Apple will take after the Sultan of Silicone Valley has passed. The new CEO of the multimedia giant, Tim Cook, is now the new name behind the devices in your hand. There are even rumors that the iPhone 4S, actually stands for “For Steve”.

In this age of the decay of printed paper, and truly instant velocity of fnews, the newly loaded software Siri seemingly fulfills all of our sci fi instant gratification fantasies. The premise behind Siri is that given any simple vocal command, your iPhone is able to answer intelligently, and with personality. As a ramification of news, the software is a complete breakthrough in disguise. From now on one need not read through a whole paper to find the story they are looking for but just tell Siri what they heard and wait for it to be found.

This new technology, like all innovations that came before it, is of course rumored to have glitches. With such an interesting and intuitive technology, though, I needed to find out just how big of a splash this tech was likely to make, inspiring me to have a seat in my girlfriend’s apartment with her new iPhone and get my hands on it.

Siri’s interface, like so many more of Apple’s, is built to be simple, easy to get your head around, and intuitive. The basic programs that Siri uses are (ironically) Google interfaces to find things that you want found

George Washington's official presidential portrait. (Courtesy of warfilm.wikia.com)

George Washington did not have to appeal to PETA for votes.

PETA, one of the largest animal rights groups in the United States, is just one of many interest groups or parties that can have press influence.  However, the party press comes from much simpler roots.

Read More…

Remember the newspaper?

It used to come knocking at the door around six in the morning. It kept Dad busy for the first hour of the day. It made great wrapping paper and cushion for fragile pottery. Most of all, however, the newspaper did the most important job of keeping its readers informed.

“A newspaper owner gets a place at every table, access to all the top politicians’ ears, and the power to impose his worldview on his readers,” writes Jack Shafer in a 2009 article for Slate titled, “The Great Newspaper Crackup of 1918.”

The newspaper has recently suffered a few setbacks — namely, the Internet — and alas, it’s finally on its way out. Most journalist mourn the death of the newspaper, but I say, why not celebrate it?

The truth is while the newspaper is dying, journalism isn’t. In fact, I happen to believe that journalism is in a period of renaissance. The rebirth of word-of-mouth journalism in the form of blogging and micro-blogging has made way to a whole new wave of journalists that exert more creativity than any writer, editor or distributor of old news.

At the same time, we shouldn’t forget to celebrate the life of the newspaper, which, if you think about it, lasted an extremely long time. To be exact, if you include the tipao and the acta, the newspaper lived for well over 1,000 years. I’d say that’s a reason for praise.

One setback, however, of the rapid popularity and velocity of the Internet, is the cheapened state of journalism that the web has perpetuated. In a 2007 Wall Street Journal article titled, “Read All About It: How newspapers got into such a fix, and where they go from here,” Paul E. Steiger discusses the many implications of the death of newspapers and the rise of online journalism.

“Anyone with a fact, a comment, a snapshot or a video clip can self-publish and instantly compete with the professionals,” Steiger states.

With the opportunity to be a journalist being given to anyone and everyone, there is the fear that it will lead to a less-informed public. I happen to believe that the mass boom of online bloggers and word-of-mouth news will be more reliable than network news and newspapers. The reasoning is that social media is self-correcting. If an inaccuracy is published, someone else will come along and correct it. This domino effect will take place until the truth is out. The real danger (in my opinion) lies in trusting a single gatekeeper (or a select few) to keep the public informed.

Ever since its inception in the late 1990s, Google has been the issue of much debate in politics, economics and overall public welfare. From its humble beginnings as a PhD dissertation project to its current state as one of the United States’ most successful corporations, the little company that could is standing at the apex of what some may call the most revolutionary displays of entrepreneurship in decades.

Ken Auletta’s tell-all book, “Googled: The End of the World as We Know It,” is a product of countless hours put into researching the company’s inner workings after being granted full access to the executives, engineers and all the resources he needed to write a fair and balanced analysis of Google’s past, present and future.

After kicking it off with an anecdotal chapter about a Viacom executive who visits Google’s Mountain View campus to talk business with the company’s higher-ups only to realize that Google was not a company he wanted to associate with, Auletta delves into Google’s beginnings with a history of its birth.

While “Googled” does a great job highlighting the innovative aspect of the company’s efforts and their many areas of success, it also expresses Google’s many fallacies and flaws, one main one being their attachment to the concept of a utopian corporation. The company seemed to be made up of engineers, and the engineers answered to no one. This hindered their abilities to make crucial decisions about design, for example.

Another sensitive subject that the book addresses is the idea of Google creating an evil empire, sometimes accused of operating outside of the law, breaking copyright laws and angering publishers.

The chapter about Google Books highlights this aspect eloquently. The concern is that by making copyrighted material available for free, Google will drive writers and publishers out of business. The same concern holds true with Google News, which compiles articles from hundreds of sources and posts them right to the site. This makes Google News the powerful “middle man” between people and the news.

The most fascinating aspect of this book is Auletta’s account of Google’s impact on the advertising industry. Before Google, advertisers took a significant risk when purchasing ad space somewhere, not knowing exactly which part of their effort will succeed. Google targeted key words and search results to cater to advertisers so they would know exactly what worked. This allowed Google to charge them much less, and therefore make more business.

Whether Google is good or evil is still a question many people like to debate, but the real answer is subjective. Auletta’s book is a wonderful guide to forming an educated decision as to whether you want to think of Google as a world-dominating  monster who’s set out to drive writers, publishers and advertisers out of business or just a free-thinking group of engineers who always have the consumers’ needs in mind.

I just wanted to share one more thing.

This video is a depiction of how the story of Christmas would be different if it were happening today. It uses social media and the internet in a clever way.

I realize that it is religious and not all of us are of the same religion, but it is relevant to our class and the season.

Enjoy

Newspapers are dying, but the news lives on. Not only does the news live, but it thrives.

How? Newspapers have been the most mainstream news outlet for decades. If it is dying, how are people staying informed? What happened?

There are many factors that have contributed to newspaper’s demise. A lot of it has to do with the invention and popularity of the internet. Just as the invention of the printing press was influential in the distribution of the newspaper, the internet is a vehicle for news to travel. It has proved to be a much faster, more immediate way to reach consumers.

This happens to technology all the time. It’s not long before a new and improved something comes along to replace a gadget that used to be cutting edge.

According to L. Gordon Crovitz of The Wall Street Journal, this isn’t the first and only time something like this has happened. A lot of media tools have evolved from other forms of communication. The development of the early telegraph is a prime example. The biggest fact about it is that we don’t use the telegraph today. The telephone come along and replaced it. Crovitz did mention that nothing has seen a disruption (like the one to newspapers) happen at this rate.

Samuel Morse's telegraph (Source: Wikipedia)

However, there is much to say to the fact that newspapers have lasted through some of the inventions that have been introduced during its reign. Newspapers were widely accepted before televisions were mainstream. The television newscast came along and has threatened the newspaper as its top competition. They seemed to form some sort of a partnership as of late. They work hand in hand and feed off each other.

Like with the printing press, the right equipment is required to participate and contribute to the news. When the printing press was new, they were hard to come by. They weren’t available to everyone. You had to be rich to have one, but if you did, you were the gatekeeper for anything that press printed. Now, anybody with a computer and internet connection can add to the information that is out there.

People have always felt the need to know what is going on around them and how it will impact their lives. With the internet and all of its tools, it is surprisingly easy. The emergence of the “Twitterverse” and “Blogosphere” have allowed news consumers to not only have that immediacy, but share and react with each other in a way that newspapers hinder.

So to answer the question I posed in the beginning of this post, I think time is killing newspapers. Time contributed to it’s invention and it was only a matter of time before something (and in this case somethings) has come to replace it. It is not possible to point a finger at any ONE electronic media outlet. It’s the combination of every new way to get the news faster.

Another way to look at this time answer is to call newspapers slow. Classic newspapers are the slowest outlet to produce the news. With Blogs and Twitter, there is no deadline. The news is ever-changing. And if there IS a deadline, blogs can be updated and a new Tweet can be written. Print is print. Ink cannot be erased.

(Photo courtesy of www.esquire.com)

As with most new technology, there are those who love e-books and those who are scared of them.

It’s been said that e-books have lowered the bar on the word count of books. Books are apparently getting shorter.

I found in “Replacing textbooks with e-books may be a mistake”, when reading online people have shorter attention spans so they don’t pay attention to as much material as they would in a psychical book. Also, people can’t read e-books the way they read physical books (highlighting, annotating, etc). Yet there is talk that e-books are replacing textbooks like having Kindles or iPads in school. However, this can create strains with different learning styles.

Let’s keep in mind Libraries and Typewriters have undergone a transformation, too. Many a Library’s budget now goes to computers instead of the space for reading. “Bye-Bye Bookstores” talks about a future with “books but no bookstores, libraries but no readers in evidence.”

“RIP Typewriters” talks about typewriters being replaced by computers. Typewriters are now being used by those hipsters who are drawn by the nostalgia. I think the same can be said about books. There will be a group of people who will view books as retro and want them but it will be for a nostalgic purpose.

Physical books will become nostalgic.

With all the options out there to get e-books, people will miss out on most of everything. There are no more limitations due to language barriers or what people heard reviewed in the media. According to “The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We’re All Going To Miss Almost Everything”, when faced with all these options, people have to practice either culling (choosing what to pay attention to for themselves) or surrendering (accepting there is so much out there and no matter how hard you try you can’t read it all).

Most people do culling and throw out entire genres because it’s easier and people have to narrow their choices somehow. I believe it is evident that most people do this because of all the drop down menus that help you search through what is out there.

Culling is being in denial and thinking you can read it all — or at least, what matters.

Surrender is accepting that there is always something else to be read. But the writer says surrender can be good since it shows that there is so much cultural value in our societies.

Although many publishers feel that e-books are evil, some view them in a positive light. E-books breathe new life into reading and make it better for readers. Writers can get their work out to people when publishers wouldn’t give them the chance. Yes, e-books are even good for publishers – they can help to “expand your audience and provide them a more convenient and innovative reading experience.”

All in all, I’m excited to see where e-books can go. It’s not going away. I can definitely see a future where e-books are way more interactive, almost like you’re seeing a movie but reading at the same time. There are even tablets for kids!

The LeapFrog Tablet...they're starting them young these days.

After all, similar to journalism, aren’t people just trying to find the best way to tell a story?

Borders is gone.

The question is why? Well for most, it’s not a question. It’s a warning. A warning to show that in this age of technology you have to adapt — or be left in the dust.

A Wall Street Journal titled “One Chapter Closes…As New One Is Opening” describes the fall of Borders. They couldn’t find a buyer. Their physical book sales went down. They didn’t adapt to e-books fast enough. Currently Amazon, Apple and Google dominate the e-book market.

Bookstores or ebooks? (Photo courtesy of http://www.product-reviews.net/2010/11/30/apple-ipad-vs-kindle-vs-nook-popularity-comparison/)

In the Washington Post’s “Borders killed by many self-inflicted paper cuts, not Web”, they say Borders said it failed because of the rapidly changing book industry, e-reader revolution and the economy. Borders lost its competitive edge, didn’t have effective business models and it over-extended itself.

According to a salon.com article, most independent bookstores weren’t too crazy about such retail stores like Barnes & Noble or Borders. But these retail stores also brought books into communities that might not have had independent stores and people are still upset that the chain closed. They say the bookstores helped the community. They created jobs, they created a space for people to read and talk about what they’ve read. The workers believed in books and helped customers see what they had been missing.

In the same article, there are some authors who are considering opening up their own bookstores now that Borders has closed. Many authors reminisced about going to Borders. It was an experience. One author compared what e-books have done to authors to what downloads have done to artists. Artists lose money from the downloads but make up for it on tours. Authors generally make more money from e-books than mass-market paperback sales. Indeed some, like Amanda Hocking, have even made millions from their e-books.

E-books are making people adapt to the new technology. People are reading more because of the convenience. E-books take advantage of the impulse buy and most importantly e-books are cheaper than most of the other options out there.

In “What an E-Reader Can’t Download,” Heitman reminds us that reading isn’t just about taking in words. Physical books can represent memories that go along with them. You don’t get that from an e-book.

Finally, I found in “From Gutenberg to Zoobert” that similar to newspapers, the independent bookstores received profits for a long time before the bigger chains came along. E-books have hurt the chains, who have only been around since the 1980s or later. Also similar to journalism now, the new technologies are changing what books are. E-books can be more interactive with the audience and provide information for further exploration at the click of a button or the tap of a finger.

So, what’s next?

When Norman Mailer, Dan Wolf and Ed Fancher established the Village Voice, they didn’t have experience in the newspaper business.

Fancher was the publisher of the Voice, Wolf the editor and Mailer was officially a silent partner. According to Menand, Wolf later said “If we had known more, we certainly would have suffered less.” Nonetheless, the Village Voice thrived and, in the process, set a standard for newspapers in the nineteen-sixties. Read More…