[LINK] Media chiefs reject internet business model

[Danny Yee]

Chirgwin, Richard wrote:
> It's a nice idea, for example, to say that the Internet can fall-back to
> user created content as James suggests - kuro5hin, wikipedia, Newsforge, /.
> and whatever. But look at the three "news" sites on that list: every single
> one is heavily dependent on mainstream media for their source material. If
> kuro5hin or /. don't have a source from which to quote, what's left? 

But journalists are heavily dependent on everyone else, too, and
many mainstrem news stories just aggregate content from elsewhere.
For example, Oxfam Community Aid Abroad recently put online a report
on Nike and Adidas workers in Indonesia:
	http://www.caa.org.au/campaigns/nike/reports/machines/
The news reports resulting from that had little to no original content.
And my own experience is that while many journalists still write good
original pieces, many expect to be spoon fed, with raw media releases
running as stories all too often.

A lot of links on sites like Kuro5hin and Slashdot are to scientific
literature (mostly commercial, but the authors aren't paid out of
publication revenues so it would get published anyway) or material
published by NGOs or individuals.  And some of the stories are actually
articles in their own right.  Even among the bloggers there are quite
a few who actually write substantial pieces and don't just link to
things.  Yes the quality is varied -- a lot of it is crap and a lot of
it is polemical.  But that's true of journalism, too, and there's an
awful lot of stuff published in print that is best left undescribed...

Who will pay for the infrastructure? is another question.  Kuro5hin now
has a Google-like advertising system, and both it and Slashdot have
subscription systems which could expand...  It's not inconceivable
that they'll meet the mainstream media somewhere in the middle!

It will be interesting to see what happens, anyway.

Danny.
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