Le Pew and You

In looking at the Pew study, Kasey was intrigued by the shift away from institution and toward indivudal.

It is increasingly the case, as the Pew study notes, that individual reporters can be supported and underwritten. There are even hyperlocal sites where stories are sponsored.

Kasey wrote about every writer having an equal voice. (Not sure I get the throwing star.) Can we talk about this?

Greg analyzed the report. He wrote, about the losses at newspapers, that they have made things worse by cutting. Discuss.

Matt was interested, of course, in the financial viability of radio news.

Courtney A. had alot of thoughts. She made reference to this article, which used Connecticut, in particular, to look at what happens when conventional legislative coverage withers. She, like Kasey is interested in the whole notion of citizen journalism and, like me, was intrigued by the rport's finding that citizen journalism sites seem to have less interactivity. We have to think about what that means, but we may not get there tonight.


She also noted the finding about how legacy sites do not link often to citizen sites. Not surprising but worth thinking about.

Courtney also frets about the death of newspapers. Kevin wonders what difference it makes if they publish only online.

(Jus)Tina posted on what Sheila would call the Silo Effect, the tendency of people to seek out information that confirms and does not challenge their existing prejudices. But she is also interested in something I too find fascinating: the most undocumented impact of online sources on sports coverage -- including sources that trash traditional sports coverage. Sports is really interesting, because its fans tend to geek out and will happily pay for more of what they want.
Why is that? There's an easy answer. An oddity. One of the early contributors to the preceding link then decided to geek out on something else and became one of our go-to sources last year for election coverage. That transition is described here. (I'm intrigued by the idea of a subculture of counter-experts. We may have to return to that.)

Jessica did sort of an omni-post, Pew, Annie Le and Bowden all together. She highlighted the decoupling of content from ad revenue in the Pew study.


Of interest to me: The New Haven Independent was among the new alternative journalism ventures mentioned.