New York Times Is A Sign Of The Old Timers: User-Driven News Is The Future

December 8, 2008 / 10:49 am • By Dr. Melissa Clouthier

So the New York Times needs to borrow against collateral to survive. I’m not surprised. This Sunday, I looked at the big lump of a paper put at my hotel room’s door and sighed. Why bother? I scrolled through my feed links, saw the articles that interested me, read them and moved along.

And really, when you think about it, what IS the news? I didn’t hear about the Bombay attack via the news and the most up-to-date news came via Twitter. The networks were okay for sensational pictures. But really, I was so totally NOT interested in hearing Deepack Chopra’s opining on Larry King or Christiane Amanpour’s two cents, either.

The news should be fact, period. This is what we know. Leave wild speculation to the Twitterverse. Leave the commentary to the experts–people who know their topic cold.

And, my co-blogger John Hawkins wonders why local newspapers are necessary, either. Considering that many papers are just pulling feeds from AP, Reuters, etc. and the local news is “bought’, and by that I mean heavily influenced by advertising dollars, what’s the point?

I foresee a time when individuals will post a news item like on eBay and people will lend credibility to the news story by rating it for: accuracy, readability, timeliness, relevance and trustworthiness or something. The contributor would get a rating. Boom! There you go. User-driven news source that’s more accurate than what we get now. Oh, and the story can get tagged so people can search and find it based on community, topic, etc.

Thoughts?

Cross-posted at RightWingNews. Follow me at Twitter!

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  • http://photoncourier.blogspot.com david foster

    Another category of competition for the traditional newspaper is the local hippie rag: these things, which seem to usually be weeklies, cover movies, musical events, restaurant reviews, etc, and are usually *free*.

  • http://acreofindependence.com Bob W.

    Dr. M., You are Way to Post-Media, at least a year or two ahead of your time.

    It is not too late to save the NYT. And even though no one says the Times is “too big to fail” (ie time for a taxpayer-funded trip to Bailout City), that doesn”t mean that the Government has to sit by the sidelines as it circles the drain. There is still time to DO SOMETHING!

    Next year, for example, the new President can resurrect the NYT to its “former glory” by bestowing the Presidential Medal of Freedomon Tom Friedman; rehabilitating Friedman (who lost a big chunk of his center-left audience for his early support of the Iraq war), is the NYT’s heritage brand, along with Maureen Dowd. Fixing Friedman sells newspapers, and gets the Gray Lady solvent again (the paper, NOT Maureen, she is already fairly solvent!).

    Or we can just sit back, watch the Times disappear, and read Blogs and stuff. Cool.

  • http://www.stoptheaclu.com Jay

    Happy birthday!

  • Matt K.

    Like most everyone else here, I suspect, I despise what has become of most television news, which obviously panders to advertisers and is controlled by a disconcertingly few people like Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch. Print media is little better, and most newspapers are owned by the same folks who monopolize television news.

    My concern with citizen reporters, however, involves professionalism and expertise. Undoubtedly there are many unprofessional and incompetent reporters working for large media outlets today, but at least they’ve had some training in the craft. It seems to me that the worst aspects of our current media will only be amplified as untrained folks displace trained journalists; after all, do any of us think our own jobs are so simple that anyone off the street could do them just as well as we do without training? Why would journalism be any different?