How it was described reminded

EmmaZahn — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 20:26:29 +0000

In reply to Repackaging the News for Smartphones

How it was described reminded me of the way I assimilated routine news while working: a little from morning radio, some from short scans of the newspapers while working, more from the office news wires, then the radio on the drive home then the evening or late night news. A snippet here and there until the Sunday paper and the weekly Time filled in some gaps. Of course, that was mostly before talk ruined radio, newsreaders replaced journalist anchors and celebrity news became dominant.

I always saw a big flaw in

artappraiser — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 18:16:29 +0000

In reply to Repackaging the News for Smartphones

I always saw a big flaw in the way news & political blogging developed that it didn't do this

We actually thread facts, quotes, stats, events, and images together to create the story line, and the story lines evolve over time, and we constantly update them.

BECAUSE its original format was a diary by one person. And then when that guy started interacting with another blogger, the whole system became that to be reciprocal and drive traffic to a correspondent's blog, you never commented on the original blog post, but started a new blog post on your blog pointing to your correspondent's blog post. I saw that as really was no different than the "he said/she said" dueling punditry that many of them liked to decry. It tends to make analysis personality-driven, people end up picking one person they like and mostly following that person's spin on things, that one narrative, and whatever followup that one person gives.

Worked contrary to the potential of the internet, recessing into tribal units(worse yet, often under a single Dear Leader) where it was like no information contrary to the narrative could intrude, maybe worse than before the telegraph was invented.

The news story follow-up thing is why I always had strong opinions on the software at TPMCafe. Having participated at another forum as someone with administrator privileges, and then going through several iterations over at TPMCafe, I could see how certain software systems enabled understanding of a developing story over time, and others promoted "opine and debate inaccurately on the breaking news and then forget it." Wash, rinse and repeat for eternity, where people with long-term knowledge of a topic would eventually give up trying to inform "the stupids" over and over, and perhaps just move to their own little tribe of specialists, where other problems develop. Again, I didn't see this as taking advantage of the potential of the internet, just the opposite.

A totally different thing that this story makes me think about: Twitter. Because it's about trying to fit complexity into the ADD world of smartphones. People, including me, derided Twitter when it first came out, as the antithesis of long-form journalism, accuracy, nuance and understanding, among many other dangers it seemed to present. But it seems lately that intellectual types are the ones becoming most addicted to it, they use it to bounce quick thoughts to each other throughout a day. Getting complexity across does not seem to be the problem it once did, not at all. But there is still the issue of tribes editing themselves.....

Just some thoughts, subject to change again soon...

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How it was described reminded

I always saw a big flaw in