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Re: Monday, April 9, 2007
I'm so happy to read this, this morning -- Doc Searls. First let me just say thank you for thinking about and writing about all of this. For transparency's sake I worked in the industry for twenty years during a time the paper made its second huge transition from what is called "cold type" to full pagination. I guess that makes me a dinosaur/newsosaur (sp?) as Nikke Finke over at Deadline Hollywood puns. (She is a fab writer). I wasn't a journalist, columnist or an editor but instead one of the people who helped create the product when it was created by hand. So I worked with many people on the staff. We all did. Because we all had to be responsible for it and also this was due in huge part, to a kind of company loyalty as well. Many pairs of eyes looked at the pages in those days before it went to press. Many pairs of hands touched the pages -- cutting them apart, fitting in stories, pulling stories -- you name it. I won't go into the whole process here. At any rate, I'm sure you are familiar with the early computers that had nothing more than a black screen and green or orange lettering? Those were called VDT's by the newspaper industry. As technology changed, the computers also changed. You can imagine what sorts of major investments papers made in the late 80's to get everyone trained and ready to go on incredibly expensive systems, and then new printing presses to match those systems. At the same time, the whole world was getting desktop computers. I can't remember when and how the web itself actually started, except that when I bought my Apple Performa (1994? - or so, because of going back to grad school) I just knew I was really happy to have the ability to use Clarisworks for my papers! I remember it had a connection via Compuserve already in there and the ability to send emails. It had Photoshop and Illustrator, things I had already been trained to use at work. So it was so easy, all of a sudden. Fast forward that to now. Who doesn't use a system of some sort? But, the web itself is the great equalizer. I bet though, there are different little groups in here that I think are called Social Networks as this web is also an evolving place, with experts from so many fields dancing around in here. And think how fast technology is evolving. In defense of newspapers on so many levels we need them now MORE than ever, and I'm not saying this out of any kind of nostalgia, either. Just today in the LAT there was an article called "Aiming for a kinder, smarter online encyclopedia" -- called "Citizendium." How could I have possibly known this unless I read this morning's paper. I like the feel of it in my hands, too. Maybe I might have found Citizendium by chance searching in the web by myself, but I doubt it. A reporter tracked it down for me, and if I were savvy enough to be able to link it like you have above in this post I would! I know how to follow links though. The question is, does everyone? The world seems to use the web for so many different things. I'm not a tekkie, so I can attach to your vast knowledge of that world if I need an answer. Like, whether linking is going to now be a violation of copyright on some level. A newspaper has always had the secondary benefit of being a shared piece of paper that many can see. I can't see how telling someone about a great story or site by linking is much different than the way one might find a paper on a bus and later tell someone about an article... A deeper ecology would be to try and find a sustainable source of paper like bamboo or hemp, perhaps. This would allow the technology to green up so we can still have that "tactile" experience of holding a printed object without killing trees for it. My biggest experience in a group in the web was in 2001. I was part of a writer's list for a time and we all wrote short fiction and poetry together. It took me awhile to realize that our educational backgrounds differed radically depending on age and physical location worldwide. Some could not use metaphor. Some could not spell. They were helped along by gentle critiques from the more advanced writers. The writers for newspapers have so many descisions to make. Daily. One wrong fact or typo makes them look foolish to the giant sea of critics that is the reading public. The pressure is immense to get it right? You can just imagine... What concerns me in the web is a trend towards Orwellian shorthand. Newspapers have to be the stewards of the future to guard against a world where everyone speaks like this: "r u ok" for "are you okay" -- or better yet, "are you all right?." The LAT had a fabulous Op-Ed on that subject, recently. Imagine things like Wikipedia and Google that can translate language! Imagine on-line dictionaries! Now, was on-line how I should have expressed that, in terms of spelling? A newspaper editor would have known. Or checked. They are stewards for our culture, in my opinion. Just yesterday, I found something in the web called Wordpress (that I have been hunting for, for ages -- in a user-friendly form!) I think this represents an evolution, but I'm not "tech-system-smart" enough to know. Readers of this blog are though, I'm quite sure. I'm going to quote something you said above, and I hope this is all right: "I'm going to say something else that may put me at odds with some blogging colleagues: Newspapers are an endangered institutional species that it is critically important to save, and to improve. To do that we need AND logic, not OR. In blogging alone we have neither the practices nor the cultures required to replace newspapers or any other established media institutions. We do have the beginnings of practices and cultures that can both stand on their own as Good Things and help other institutions — such as media, business, churches and government. To name a few."------ Doc Searls. Search Google on outsourcing and you will see trend I don't think any of us can stomach, Doc. Not when it comes to a beloved tradition that thumps (and has thumped) its way onto driveways, porches and our hearts and minds forever. To lose it would be to lose something like Thanksgiving. Now, guess where I'll go today. "Citizendium" just to see what it's going to be about! But I have the LAT to thank for the (printed) "pointer" to the web link, and I got that in my driveway today. Now if I only knew what a techmeme tree was... But I have you to thank for my first stop Doc! ('cause of the way you can link above directly in the web) And see, if I was a tech person I'd understand, too. This new Wordpress seems to be related to what I think a techmeme is? Not sure, but someone here must know... I think flickr and technorati have something to do with a techmeme, but I could be wrong. If I am, it's okay to say so, right here. Anyway, have a great day, all. Thank you, Doc Searls. There are responses to this message:
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