Attention: Fenian (and others)

F_B,

Garland Robinette, the WWL Radio (Nola) guy you liked in Spike Lee's documentary, will talk about the plight of newspapers in the coming hour. You can listen to WWL online. His show is always good.

 

Thanks, JD.
Not at a streaming computer.

 

Is there a podcast saved?

 

What was the gist? I don't think that part is on the podcasts available at WWL.com

 

Because we have opposable thumbs, we will adapt and Twitter our way back to prosperity.

But seriously ...

Garland took calls in the first half hour. Amy Mitchell, Deputy Director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, was the guest in the second segment and said nothing we haven't discussed here on the board many times. Then, Garland took more calls.

You didn't miss anything life-changing, but I was impressed that a radio talk show host devoted an hour to the topic. He said more than once what a problem this is and will be for America, and he said most don't know about and/or care about it. He spoke frankly about how radio and TV news departments rely upon the print media for their daily agendas, and he wondered what will happen when more and more papers fold.

There was talk about micropayments, about the broken business model, about most of the things we talk about here. Garland said he looks at the Wall Street Journal's site to see the big stories of the day, then just does a Google search and reads them for free instead of being a subscriber.

Nothing jumped out at me during interview, but it was good to hear someone other than newspaper folks sounding the alarm.

 

JD, did he do a show about this last Thursday afternoon, too?

I heard a N.O. host on WWL discussing the newspaper industry decline. One of his guests was a professor from Nichols State, I believe, and another was from a local station. It was a good show.

 

I don't know. I didn't hear that one. Wish I had.

 

If more stations were plugged into their communities like WWL, we'd all have less to bitch about on here.