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This page contains all of the posts and discussion on MemeStreams referencing the following web page: End Times - The Atlantic. You can find discussions on MemeStreams as you surf the web, even if you aren't a MemeStreams member, using the Threads Bookmarklet.
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End Times - The Atlantic
by Decius at 8:56 am EST, Jan 7, 2009 |
What if TheNew York Times goes out of business—like, this May?
That would seriously suck. |
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RE: End Times - The Atlantic
by Rattle at 11:06 am EST, Jan 8, 2009 |
Decius wrote: What if TheNew York Times goes out of business—like, this May?
That would seriously suck.
This may sound just as scary, but if the NYT was going to go out of business, Rupert Murdoch would buy it at the last moment.. |
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RE: End Times - The Atlantic
by Decius at 11:40 am EST, Jan 8, 2009 |
Rattle wrote: Decius wrote: What if TheNew York Times goes out of business—like, this May?
That would seriously suck.
This may sound just as scary, but if the NYT was going to go out of business, Rupert Murdoch would buy it at the last moment..
That would instantly cause the heads of the entire pundit class to explode. William Saffire and Paul Krugam would both be found dead. The Mississippi would flow north. Arianna Huffington would go back to being a conservative and then back to being a liberal and then back to being a conservative and then back to being a liberal so quickly that she would tear a hole in the left-right continuum - fusing Rush Limbaugh, Michael Moore, and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man into a single moderate monster who'd lay havoc to Washington DC! Something must be done! |
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RE: End Times - The Atlantic
by Rattle at 11:53 am EST, Jan 8, 2009 |
That would instantly cause the heads of the entire pundit class to explode. William Saffire and Paul Krugam would both be found dead. The Mississippi would flow north. Arianna Huffington would go back to being a conservative and then back to being a liberal and then back to being a conservative and then back to being a liberal so quickly that she would tear a hole in the left-right continuum - fusing Rush Limbaugh, Michael Moore, and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man into a single moderate monster who'd lay havoc to Washington DC! Something must be done!
And then Gannet would buy WaPo.. |
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RE: End Times - The Atlantic
by janelane at 6:38 pm EST, Jan 8, 2009 |
Decius wrote: What if TheNew York Times goes out of business—like, this May?
That would seriously suck.
This may be a stupid question, but why can't the iTunes model be applied here? Or the Netflix model? Is journalism so undervalued that no one can be expected to pay for it? I suppose that was the author's point, but he seems to have overlooked a few revenue outlets. -janelane |
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RE: End Times - The Atlantic
by noteworthy at 7:26 pm EST, Jan 8, 2009 |
janelane asked: Is journalism so undervalued that no one can be expected to pay for it?
The data suggest that perhaps as many as ~95% of NYT's current readers are not paying for it. WSJ charges $89-99/year; according to Wikipedia they have less than 1M readers worldwide, compared to NYT's 1M daily print subscribers. If NYT started charging $99/year for the web site, their traffic would likely drop dramatically, perhaps as much as 90%. They are probably better off keeping the site free to readers and selling ads against those pageviews. They ought to be able to make such an assessment with some confidence, given the results of their experiment with Times Select, when they put the top shelf columnists behind a paywall. I can't put my hands on the numbers at the moment, but not too long ago I read something about how much of The Times' operating budget is dependent upon (i.e., provided by) the advertising in its quarterly special magazines (Escapes! Styles! T!). My recollection is that these few issues, packed with very pricey advertising, pay the bills for the bulk of the paper throughout the year. If they can manage to continue selling 1-2 million copies of the print edition these few days of the year, then they should be able to afford to maintain the news bureau for a daily digital edition. Business Week published a cover story on The Future Of The New York Times back in 2005. It's worth a look. |
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End Times
by noteworthy at 10:30 pm EST, Jan 7, 2009 |
What if The New York Times goes out of business -- like, this May? Abe Rosenthal often said he couldn’t imagine a world without The Times. Perhaps we should start. At some point soon -- sooner than most of us think -- the print edition, and with it The Times as we know it, will no longer exist. For a time, the fluff helped underwrite the foreign bureaus, enterprise reporting, and endless five-part Pulitzer Prize aspirants. But it has gradually hollowed out journalism’s brand, by making the newspaper feel disposable.
From last year: Get real or go home.
From a year ago, remixed: "News" is the cultural anomaly of our moment. Someone from the past, I think, would marvel at how much time we spend consuming news and how our social consciousness is defined by how much we think we know about people we'll never meet and places we'll never go, and how it makes us feel as if we’re part of something big. Someone from the future, I’m sure, will marvel at our blindness.
Have you seen Season Five of The Wire? In the "smoking lounge" on the loading dock outside the Baltimore Sun, City Editor Augustus "Gus" Haynes talks about layoff rumors with veteran police reporter Roger Twigg and City general assignment reporter Bill Zorzi. Haynes, Phelps, Metro Editor Steven Luxenberg and a dozen other editors gather in Managing Editor Thomas Klebanow's office as he runs the metro budget meeting. Phelps and Luxenberg admit that they're chasing the Daily Record on the story on MTA cutbacks but blame their lack of a transportation reporter. Klebanow scolds their inability to do more with less. At the newspaper bar, Haynes and the team celebrate a job well done. Gutierrez is happy with her contributing line and to be working for the Sun. But Templeton, obviously dissatisfied, has his sights set on the Times or the Post.
Best. Show. Ever. |
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