Convienience Uber Alles

One of these days I'm going to get around to posting some actual Rob-created content here again. Until then, check out Eric Burns-White's post on Websnark about the new media/old media divide. Here's a slice, but there's a lot more food for thought where this came from.

I don't know very many people who read a newspaper cover to cover, whether online or on paper. But a lot of people read articles that are germane to them right at that moment. Articles get linked on twitter or Livejournal. Google gathers these things together and points people at them when they're interested. And news sources that accept that they're a brief stopover on one's daily web journey get far more traffic than news sources that make a person jump through hoops to get the news. Bring money into the equation, and suddenly that readership drops by another order of magnitude or two. Robert Murdoch and those like him may assert the value of their goods, and equally assert that content must be paid for, but the only thing they can possibly do is make their content irrelevant to the broader world that's coming.

Let me repeat that.

The only thing paywalls or other direct monetization can do for newspapers or any other topical content is make it irrelevant to the world of the internet age.

Burns-White goes on to assert that convenience trumps all other characteristics of the content: quality, reliability, etc. On a level playing field, quality will out. But if there's even a little hurdle to cross before reaching it--even free registration--some other content filling the same niche will get the hits instead.

From experience, I know convenience affects my behavior. I read Krugman, Dowd, Herbert, and Rich all the time for a while at the New York Times' site. Then they erected a paywall, which lasted for a while, and I stopped. (For a little while, I went to a pirate site to read them, but that was too much hassle.) Now there's no longer a pay wall... and I read them occasionally. Usually when someone links to Herbert or Krugman, and Maureen Dowd, very rarely at all. Frank Rich is the only one of the bunch I seek out on my own.

I don't know what that says, really. Except that even some temporary inconvenience can break a consumer habit.

Rob

Eye of the Spider

I don't know why I hadn't seen this before, but it's absolutely brilliant: Peter Parker's photo essay for the New York Times on "The Mutant Problem."


It's really creative and well-imagined. Check it out.

Rob
(And Pete? I'm proud of you for finally leaving JJJ behind.)

Good Ol' Drudge.

Ha-ha!

Rob

Someone Get This Man a Ferret.

The AP sez he needs one.

"Seriously... a cute little guy with a pink nose."

Rob

Following Up

The New York Times' David Carr on the Fox News Photoshopping.

Rob

Want to See Some Reprehensible Reporting?

Look no further than Fox.

It's not like I'm surprised, but man... you can't even trust the pictures they show you. Liar, liar, Doocy on fire.

Rob

National Disgrace

Hey look! We were stripped of our rights! Again!

Here's the lede of an AP story about a memo that said the Fourth Amendment couldn't protect us from the government.

For at least 16 months after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001, the Bush administration believed that the Constitution's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures on U.S. soil didn't apply to its efforts to protect against terrorism.

I swear, considering the frequency and vigor with which Bush has wiped his ass with the Constitution, it's a wonder Nicolas Cage ever found that treasure.

Rob

Democracy, Wiz Wit'

Oh, how I wish there was a news outlet capable of covering the Pennsylvania primary race in Philly without hanging out at a cheese steak place. Yeah, they're proof that god loves us and the devil wants us dead sooner rather than later, but still. Morning Edition broadcast a report from Rick's Steaks at the Reading Terminal Market this morning...

...and I should not crave a cheese steak at 8:30 in the morning. There's no way that's natural.

Rob

Say What You Want About Spitzer...

...but he hasn't been caught participating in Nazi-themed orgies. I swear, the human mind is a snake pit.

More appropriate themes for orgies?

• Gilligan's Island.
• King Kong versus Godzilla.
  
• Senate Subcommittee on Foreign Relations.
• Arbor Day.
• Exiled in Space!
  
• UFC: Ultimate F***ing Challenge
  
• Rollerball.
  

and

• Slap leather! The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

Remember:

Arbor Day = HOT.

Rob

Filthy, Filthy NPR

Sure, it's no "Pete's Schwetty Balls," but this description from yesterday's Morning Edition of former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin (who's taking the reins of Citibank) seemed a little raunchier to me than (I hope) it was meant:

When every other politician and cabinet secretary in Washington was raising his hand for Bill Clinton's attention, Robert Rubin sat there with his hand in his lap, and got noticed as a result of that.

That'd do it.

Rob

By Hooker, By Crook

So this recent headline at Talking Points Memo,

Hooker: Duke Cunningham Fed Me Grapes in Hot Tub

got me to thinking: Isn't ANY headline made better by positioning it as testimony from a prostitute? (It also got me wondering if "grapes" was a euphemism, but that's neither here nor there.)

The whore's eye view makes taking a look at CNN.com much more fun:

Hooker: 'Baby Jessica' waiting to collect $1 million

Tart: Bhutto mobbed upon return to Pakistan

Trollop: Children's health care bill heads for showdown

Local Roundheels: Storms Rake the Midwest

Ho: France's Sarkozy and wife announce split

Doxy: Did condemned Hussein get hair dye, cigar?

GOP sources: Hastert won't finish term

(Seriously, we know what "GOP sources" means by now... they get free grapes.)

Rob

Monkey Newsday

Either CBS News has an infinite number of monkeys clacking away on an infinite number of typewriters...

...or it plagiarized an article from the conservative website WorldNetDaily.


What do YOU think?

Rob

Where Have You Gone, Ed Anger?

Sad news indeed. After 27 years of publishing, the Weekly World News is calling it quits. It’s enough to make a guy pig-biting mad.

I have great memories of senior year of college, walking to Super Fresh with my friend Esther for a copy of WWN. We’d split a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and read it in her dorm, trying to figure out which of the students in our creative writing class was a space alien. (Never just an alien – a space alien.)

Rob

Choi at the Bat

I’m sure they’ll fix this on the main site, so I’m pasting a bit of it here for posterity. In the middle of Erica Harbatkin's coverage of the Edison election results in the Home News Tribune (mayor Jun Choi’s handpicked slate of newcomers won), something strange happens. Take a look:

EDISON — Mayor Jun Choi's slate of candidates won the Democratic council primary on Tuesday, giving the mayor control of the township's divided Democratic party.

Choi's Edison Democratic Party slate, which was full of political newcomers handpicked by the mayor, beat out the incumbents on the council and a third ticket headed by former Councilman Bill Stephens for the Democratic Party line in the November General Election.

The winning slate is composed of Washington Elementary School Principal AnnMarie Griffin-Ussak; former Edison boys baseball coach Wayne Mascola; Edison Township Education Foundation founder and President Melissa Perilstein; and Sudhanshu Prasad, an internal-medicine specialist and former chairman of JFK Medical Center's Department of Medicine.

Official numbers were not available Tuesday night because District 26 had a zero tally sheet, but results without those numbers had Griffin-Ussak with 3,607 votes, Perilstein with 3,486, Prasad with 3,500 and Mascola with 3,389.

"We started this movement two years ago and onto the diamond for the top of the sixth. But Randolph, which was down to its final strike in the sectional semifinal on May 29 and came-from-behind to win the sectional final, turned four hits, including a triple and two doubles, two walks and an Edison error into six runs.

HUH?

I follow American politics, so I’m no stranger to the labored sports metaphor. But it’s usually not this long. Sure, there’s a baseball coach among the winners, but Jack Kemp didn’t talk about football this much.

Let’s continue, shall we?

Senior catcher Rob Kral, who homered four times in Friday's sectional final, hit a grand slam in the top of the seventh for Randolph (23-7) to conclude the scoring. Winning pitcher Steve Zavala (13-1) homered in the first at bat of the game and went 3-for-4 with four runs and three RBIs to help fuel the Morris County school's 14-hit attack…

And it goes on for three more paragraphs, before resuming the election coverage.

Um… go Eagles? And congratulations, councilmen-elect?

I’d prefer a few more checks and balances in my soup, but I have hope that Mayor Choi and his handpicked team of councilmen govern responsibly, and don’t run on a pop fly unless there are already two outs.

Rob

UPDATE: As expected, the story has been fixed.

Registered Sense Offenders

I can't even begin to say how angry this makes me.Especially the mom's self-satisfied attitude at the end. He was a little rude (in an effort NOT to be!) so he deserves to be run out of town? In what universe does that make sense? He should check that book on etiquette outof the library and feed it to her.

And the cops? "Your best bet is to leave the area?" Thanks for protecting the innocent, assholes. Someone needs suing.

Rob

UPDATE: The link above is dead (though I’ll try to find the original story again when I get home tonight), but here’s a link to the Eric Haskett story on Sploid which led me there. Sadly, I don’t think it has the quote from his girlfriend’s mom, blaming it all on him for not coming to the door and dozing off in front of her. (Oops... On second look, it's there after all.)