Feel the love
Posted by TFG on August 24th, 2007
– the managing editor of a local fishwrap
I don’t feel like Googling the Seattle P-I’s readership and advertising numbers. I’m guessing they’re down, just like every other fishwrap across this great land. That kind of conceited arrogance might just may be be one of the reasons why.
What’s the rumpus, you might ask? The P-I decided not to run a picture, provided by the FBI, of a couple of swarthy dudes who’d been fingered as running some odd sort of surveillance on ferry operations in and around Seattletown. Which, I am given to understand, ferry ops are a pretty important part of the Seattletown economy.
Via Vanderleun…
August 25th, 2007 at 9:09 am
I still subscribe to the local paper. I just don’t read it. I don’t read it because the news in it is always a day-and-a-half out of date. There’s the lead time of the paper, of course, which is overnight, so what I’m looking at is at least that old, even on the biggest stories. Then there’s the one-day syndication lag. Since newspapers became parts of chains of papers, and since those chains fired all but a few reporters, most of the stuff in the paper is from somewhere else, and it’s a day old when it gets to the wire, and then the lead time, and then it’s some freak show story from someplace I’ve never been and never intend to go.
So every morning, I sit down in front of the computer and read the news, and the newspapers pile up on the front porch like I’m on vacation. I bring them in on Saturdays and do the crossword puzzles.
I don’t even read the Sunday editorial section anymore, and my sister works there. After a week in the rough-and-tumble of the blog world, the Very Responsible Washington columnists — who I’ve already read online anyway — are just boring.
On top of all that, we’ve got Very Responsible editors protecting us from information the FBI thinks we should have. The FBI may be wrong — they often are. But come on; It’s news by any measure.
Sometimes I wonder if newspapers are trying to go out of business.
August 25th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Don’t let the m.e. of the local fishwrap fool you. He isn’t deciding what’s news and what’s fair. He’s following the lead of the WaPo, the NYTimes, and the AP, etc. Not to mention the Columbia Journalism Review. It’s all one big union now. Not only do the fishwraps all look alike, they all read alike.
August 25th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Sometimes I wonder if newspapers are trying to go out of business.
They don’t need to try…it’s happening to them, because they won’t change. I honestly think there’s too much status and prestige involved.
they all read alike
Thankfully, the sports pages are still pretty localized. I still get a kick out of them when I’m out of town and I have the time to read them.
August 25th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
I understand that journalists have a hard time with the concept that the Internet means we now get to decide what is news and what isn’t, and what is fair and what isn’t.