New Orleans Saints Forums - blackandgold.com - A Little Something About Journalism

Anyone who hasn't read the latest blog post - posted by Xan, absolutely needs to. It speaks of the coverage of this bounty nonsense, but it speaks to much more.

While reading what Xan had to say I was reminded of a story on NPR this morning. Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes is buying a majority stake in "The New Republic", a magazine founded in 1918 or somewhere in there.

When this story ran this morning, I stopped dead in my tracks. I was surprised because these new Media Millionaires have collectively preached doom for the printed media for years now. I recall Mark Cuban telling Sports Writer and Radio Personality Randy Galloway that newspapers were 'dead'. Google has furthered this by bailing on radio, newspapers, and magazines and is trying to digitize anything ever printed...for real. And not that there is anything wrong with that I guess.

But this Facebook guys said more or less that people who really want to understand a thing - his example was middle eastern politics - have to do more than read online blurbs and that the thing most readily available online are, in fact, blurbs. His assessment was that there was, is now, and will continue to be value in an intimate experience with the printed page, and that magazines can offer details that, while potentially available on the internet, are not presented in such a way as to hold the attention of the seeker long enough to fully educate him or her on whatever the thing is they're reading about.

I happen to fully agree. He went on to discuss the lack of "quality" journalism - "responsible" journalism - "meaningful" journalism. I was very impressed with his take as my wife and I are doing what we can to teach our children the value and the joy in sitting down with a book, a REAL BOOK.

Anyway, Xans blog post speaks of this in his far more eloquent abilities. Here's a a quick blurb (sorry, I know) on the Facebook co-founder thing if anyone is interested:

Quote:

Now, Hughes wrote in his letter, "people are once again skeptical that quality journalism can flourish. Technology's disruption of traditional forms of media has led many to believe that independent, thoughtful media institutions are on the decline and that there are not enough readers to support serious reporting and analysis."

He thinks the rise of tablets and mobile reading devices offers a good time to reinvigorate in-depth journalism for which people still thirst.

"In the next era of The New Republic, we will aggressively adapt to the newest information technologies without sacrificing our commitment to serious journalism," he wrote.

Facebook co-founder buys The New Republic magazine - CBS News