> Doug Henwood wrote:
> > I'd love to see someone like Pew do an analysis of where all this info
> > on the web comes from.
Amidst all the noise in this thread, a weak and wavering signal occasionally came in on my radio.
I observed a day or two back that I don't read the NY Times any more. Doug responded with characteristic asperity. But what I said is literally true.
I used to get the paper every morning and go through the A section and the Metro section (I always avoided Farts & Seizures, erm Arts & Leisure, like the plague, and as for the Sunday magazine -- yimmach shmo!)
I don't do that any more. I hardly ever glance at a print edition. That whole daily rite of sinking into the gray fog of the Times worldview while desperately trying to remain sane is blessedly one that can now be avoided.
Doug has a point. I do occasionally, maybe almost daily, read an item from the Times. But I read it on the web, and I've come to it from a Google search or a link passed along on somebody's blog or maybe even in a post on lbo-talk.
The news-gathering and reporting aspect of what the Times and all the other Gray Ladies do is still valuable, with suitable precautions. Seasoned readers know how to discount the paper's prejudices, skim patiently until the really interesting bit of information shows up in the last graf, and notice when a usually loquacious dog doesn't bark. Once you have those skills, there's a lot to be gleaned from the Times.
But the newspaper business really does appear to be doomed, and I for one won't mourn.
It's interesting to speculate how the news-gathering function will be served in the future. I don't pretend to know, but it seems unlikely that we will all descend into more-than-Gothic ignorance when the New York Titanic finally subsides beneath the greasy swell.
The dear old doorstopper may have its uses, but it's not indispensable.
--
Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org