Diary of a Mad Editor

Archive for the ‘journalism’ Category

It’s a Google Thang, Baby

Using Google is something we’ve come to take for granted — so much so that I don’t think we give props to just how useful Google is as a research tool. What used to take hours or even days rifling through various reference books at a library can often be done in seconds or minutes with Google.

Let’s say you’re writing an article about the impact of the recent economic crisis on the real estate market in Seattle and you want to talk to a number of realtors in that city to get the scoop. Back in the day, you’d probably look in the yellow pages. If you didn’t happen to live in the area, that meant going to your local library and hoping that they had a copy of a phone directory for the Seattle, WA area in their reference collection. Now all you have to do is key in Seattle Realtors into Google and your immediately giving a ready index of several real estate websites with contact information.

I love Google. I’d marry Google if it were legal.

The Writing on the Wall Pt. 2

You remember that movie, Office Space? Remember that character, Milton and how the boss kept moving him around until he was working in a basement storage room? Well, the great downsizing of American print journalism continues. According to Editor & Publisher, in addition to a buyout of 151 of its reporting and non-reporting support staff, Newark’s Star-Ledger has moved two of its journalists into the mailroom. Can you fucking believe that? The mailroom?!

Here’s my thoughts on this bullshit: Don’t blame New media for killing Old media. This is a death by suicide. Like the auto industry and every other failing industry in the United States, print media is suffering from a supreme lack of imagination, innovation and entrepeneurial spirit. All these buyouts will do nothing to save this industry in the long term — it just drags out the death of the industry. Either make a serious, long term investment in fixing this broken industry — I mean reinvent the fucker or shut it down outright and spare us all the death rattle.