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Reilly to Globe: Buy UH, Hire Gaffin
By david_yamada on Fri, 01/30/2009 - 12:01am
In the Jan. 30 edition of the Phoenix:
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Comments
I was wondering ...
when someone would notice that and post it here. What do you think, Adam?
It was very nice of Adam Reilly
To even think up something like that. And I'd be willing to talk to almost anybody about almost anything. But I'm not canceling all my other plans to sit by the phone :-).
advertising!
What I'm more interested in is who'll start advertising on UH. As the Globe implodes, marketing people will have to spend their money somewhere. Why not UH?
On the other hand, that would probably offend the participants here.
Oh, I suppose now you'll want to hear about my business plan
www.bostonblogs.com/advertising.html
With, hopefully, some interesting stuff to come over the next few months.
Another suggestion from the
Another suggestion from the article:
Yeah, I don't like that strip either.
No, No, No
No, no, no.
Celebrity 'news' is *shit*. We get more stupid every time we read it. Papers print it only cynically. It is a vile practice, and perpetuating it only signals that a paper *deserves* to end. A paper can be entertaining and even irreverent without shoveling *shit*.
Papers need to *stop* thinking of themselves as all-the-crap-that-fits, and start thinking of themselves exclusively as *producers of good journalism*. Good journalism is the thing they can do that not every random wanker with a blog can.
Make a big deal about it, with stirring editorials about your re-commitment to quality journalism, and how your readers deserve better than celebrity 'news', especially given the challenges we now face. When people think of your paper, they will think of quality journalism, some of it even entertaining, but never *shit*.
at least
Credit Reilly for offering some concrete suggestions instead of engaging in the more typical death watch that's going on right now. The demise of the Globe would leave a nuke hole void in the city's civic culture.
OK, Neil is right that more celeb/cheesecake "journalism" is a terrible idea. But the Globe is too uptight. And it needs a strategy to reach younger folks. (As does virtually every daily in the country.) Plus, the buy UH/hire Gaffin approach (assuming our host is willing) addresses the Globe's crying need to integrate more everyday voices from the Boston community into its daily life.
And if it wants to capture more of the college crowd (students and faculty alike), it's got to start recognizing there are more than four universities (Harvard, MIT, BU, BC) worth covering on a regular basis. (Lack of objectivity disclosure: I teach at a school not on the list.) Beefing up the Ideas coverage with more guest pieces from Harvard folks won't do the trick.
Anyway, I welcomed the piece as a needed conversation starter/builder. If we don't start talking about the Globe's resurgence rather than its mere survival, it is doomed.
My only issue with a
My only issue with a UH/Globe merger is, if you think the comments here sometimes get a little crazy, you should take a look at the comments (when they even allow it) on Boston.com. At least on UH there's a sembalance of discussion. On Boston.com the comments are like a race to the bottom over who can be most embarassing.
here is much better
You're right --the Globe and Herald reader comments alike are truly awful, absolutely. In the event of a "merger," UH would have to consider limiting comments to registered users, with no anons. (And if anyone thinks the Globe comments are more "refined" than the Herald's, think again.) The right story brings out the haters en masse -- mean, obnoxious, venomous -- it's depressing just to read this stuff, thinking it represents some sizable chunk of humanity.
So, Adam..
.. how do I invest in your burgeoning web empire? Put me on your IPO list!
Seriously - there could be an interesting mix of sharing web content between UH and a... a... "official" news outlet. The community aspect is important though, as one commenter noted about commenters on b.c - finding a sizeable enough community to be interesting, but that can be decent with each other in comments is difficult. That's a big part of the value of UH for me.
UH Should By The Globe
Just wait it out until you can afford it.
It won't be long. The Globe's strategy seems to be to provide at thinner and lower quality product and increase the price.
In my highly uneducated opinion...
...the problem is that newspapers are desperately trying to figure out how to save the old business model rather than figuring out how to monetize their core product in the future.
Historically, media vehicles thrived by selling eyeballs to advertisers, with the news merely being the hook to attract consumers. Fragmentation via cable & the internet made traditional vehicles less effective aggregators.
It's time for the newspapers to become jounalism content-providers and focus on selling quality content to people that are willing to pay for it. Having the Globe sink into the gossip business doesn't make much sense - there's better and more salacious options already available.
Selling relevant local news and opinion, targeted to people that are willing to pay for it, is the opportunity. The delivery of that content is secondary and should ultimately be self-selected by the user (web, podcasts, video, feeds, etc.)
The three circles of a good local site
Steve Yelvington, who's an online-news pioneer, had an interesting post the other day on how newspapers need to finally break out of the one-to-many model. Forget Craigslist for a second, the Globe should be worrying about Yelp, too.
Now imagine if, instead of ditching Confidential Chat all those years ago, the Globe had moved it online. Will BoMoms succeed?
Hook, via Bill Watterson
The "Calvin & Hobbes" cartoonist once opined that newspapers were taking the one thing they had that was unavailable elsewhere - daily comic strips - and shrinking them down to the point where actual "art" was near-impossible for the draftsman to create, and also shrinking the space devoted to this asset. He was right, of course.
Is there anything else that a newspaper provides that is unavailable elsewhere? Obviously, the specific viewpoint of certain writers employed by specific papers, but I can't come up with any examples of a specific type of content.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Oh, you're going to make me defend the Globe, are you?
Investigative reporting.
Sal DiMasi would still be Speaker of the House today without it. The local archdiocese would be tens of millions of dollars richer today without it. Nixon, well, OK, Nixon would probably still be dead today, but we never would have seen him doing that famous double Victory wave as he flew off into ignominy.
Plus, we'd never have learned we need to walk like a penguin to avoid getting put on the home page of boston.com for falling on our asses.
I'm not disagreeing with your main point, but...
Sal DiMasi may still be around without the Globe, but on the other hand Peter Quinn may not have left when he did. (I'm not sure if that is the best example of a bunch of sensationalized rumor that went nowhere, but its the first one I could think of.)
Other religions besides the Catholic church have an organization of dioceses and archdioceses.
The Boston Pheonix was writing about the Boston Catholic archdiocese sexual abuse scandal before the Globe did. (on the other hand, you could argue that George Carlin and Kevin Smith were talking about pedophile priests before then too.) If the Globe wasn't there to pick up the story and run with it, would it have died there?
And how long ago was that?
Comic strips are pretty widely available on the web these days.
Here's a question for you all: If not for the Globe or its Boston.com site, how would you have learned about our biggest current local story, Brandeis's decision to close the Rose Art Museum?
Rose? I Learned About It Here!
Ron - See above concerning your question. As for your statement of fact, I agree (and say "D'Oh!" while slapping my forehead.) However, there is still something more satisfying about artwork on paper, no? The aesthetics could be the hook.
Adam - The specific instances you mention are important, and should be credited to that source, but what I was asking about was generic; some type of writing and/or entertainment a newspaper might offer, unavailable elsewhere. And, as Ron pointed out, my own example isn't as unavailable as I might have conjectured. Again, D'Oh!
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
And where did 'here' learn about it?
Was it from somewhere other than the Globe or Boston.com?
In a lot of cases, if you learned about something from UHub, or LiveJournal, or Twitter, or Facebook, or AIM chat, the ultimate source is a newspaper or the newspaper's website. Not always, but often. Take away that newspaper, and what happens to the news?
Oh, I Understood Your Point, Ron
And I appreciate the thoroughness that newspapers can bring to the task, as opposed to the more ephemeral-by-nature electronic mediums. I was just answering the question as asked.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Not best example, perhaps
I heard about it elsewhere (wish I could remember where).
However, that does bring up another point: Newspapers are still way better than most of us at telling us the hows and whys of a story, not just the whats and whens. Geoff Edger's done a great job on following up on the Rose story.
There's still a need for fulltime professional journalists. Whether there's a need for a traditional media outlet, though, is another question.
To Be Clear
I love newspapers. I love the feel of them. I love the smell of newsprint. I enjoy the leisurely nature of them; how I can sit back and actually think about the news I've just encountered, as opposed to being bombarded by the next piece of film before the import of the previous story has had a chance to settle in. I find almost every aspect of newspapers charming, and I would love to be able to come up with some "Eureka!" moment concerning them.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Egg... chicken...
I'd be interested to hear you speculate on how more than a handful of fulltime professional journalists would continue to exist without traditional media outlets.
And there's the rub
One model is something like MinnPost, which combines advertising with support from readers and grants.
When I said "traditional media outlets," I was thinking of newspapers struggling to make the online transition. They're saddled with huge "legacy" costs (printing presses, delivery trucks and, yes, all the people who operate them). Strip away the print costs and could you make enough just online to support a newsroom? MinnPost might provide an answer.
MinnPost
Exactly so. As the newsprint model struggles to survive, a number of these independent, Web-only news publications have come online, and the Pulitzer committee recently made them eligible for consideration in all 14 categories. "Traditional media" content republished on the Web is specifically excluded.
This site is news the way
This site is news the way that Somerville is a rich suburb. ;)
Then agin, anyone will buy anyhing because they think some jaggoff's opinion is worth something. Oooh look at me, I work on my mac while drinking lattes!
;)
You're pretty tough in cyberspace, flameboy
To quote my my favorite dork.
I don't drink lattes (go down to the very bottom of this page to see what I run on) and I'm typing this on a Dell laptop - on my dining-room table. But thanks for visiting; and sorry the spring on the door is busted - don't let it hit you on the way out.
Are unlogged-in anons back on board....
...on a permanent basis?
Unlogged-in anons?
The unlogged-in anons never went away in the first place. They may have been drivern underground for a short while, but they've always been with us on this board.
Brave anons
explained here -- see paragraph 3 and subsequent.
Thanks
I _thought_ there had been at least a brief period of freedom from unlogged-in nasty trolls.
Slight difference
All anon posts now get stuck in a queue where I have to decide whether to approve them or not. I'm not letting everything through anymore. Maybe I should raise my "offensiveness" filter?
One of these days, I really do need to figure out how to allow anon comments on the Boston English and Boston Crime pages but not on main UH pages (although, yes, some of the Crime pages now are also "main" UH pages - it's a good thing I'm not really a programmer, because I suspect my code would only be good for covering with marinara sauce).
Tying it all together here,
Tying it all together here, it's worth noting that MinnPost "requires that all commenters register and post comments with their real first and last names. Place of residence is collected, but we currently do not publish this info with comments."
Great idea, another way of legitimizing their journalism and avoiding the race-to-the-bottom effect ^^^ of anonymous public commentary. Really a very professional way of operating. I like it.
A small drawback to the
A small drawback to the moderator queue for anon postings is that they mess with the timeline.
For example, this anon comment wasn't on the page when I posted my comment saying much the same thing:
http://www.universalhub.com/crime/20090130-man_wit...
W00T!
(makes pinky and ring finger up horns gesture)
Maybe you can offer your consulting services?
Seattle city council tries to get involved
In Seattle, one of the two daily papers there is on the verge of just shutting down. The Seattle City Council held a hearing to discuss the future of journalism, invited some bloggers in. One blogger who wasn't there but who watched the session on cable TV, posted an interesing report to consider the question - and post some of the fears of council members:
Yeah, because responsible, trained professional journalists would never do something like that.
Via HyperlocalBlogger, whose RSS feed I now need to subscribe to.