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David Simon's lament in Esquire: "A newspaper can't love you back."

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Double Down, Jan 15, 2008.

  1. Wow. That piece is fantastic.
     
  2. Twoback

    Twoback Active Member

    So do I. And I just couldn't stop reading. I hit every word. It hits harder when you're almost exactly the same age.
     
  3. dooley_womack1

    dooley_womack1 Well-Known Member

    A little bit of it is overwrought (other reporters could pick up poverty and labor stories, for example, and trying to win prizes can be an impetus to transcendent work if done right. And yes, many staffs probably were bloated). But it is a scary history review, and a not-so-promising forecast.
     
  4. Baltimoreguy

    Baltimoreguy Member

    Thank god. I just finished reading Mark Bowden's piece in the new Atlantic, and I hadn't yet read quite enough stories about David Simon, The Sun, The Wire, and the decline and fall of daily newspapering. Now I've had my daily fill. And I'm sure tomorrow will bring a whole new series of blogs and stories that Romenesko can link to.
     
  5. Simon_Cowbell

    Simon_Cowbell Active Member

    Click the color palette, and then click the eighth one down.
     
  6. shockey

    shockey Active Member

    powerful. hits all too close to home for this almost-30-year-newspaper vet. :'( :'( :'(
     
  7. HoopsMcCann

    HoopsMcCann Active Member


    i'm a convert, and i'm only 2/3 through season 1
     
  8. NoOneLikesUs

    NoOneLikesUs Active Member

    Great close.
     
  9. OnTheRiver

    OnTheRiver Active Member

    Goddamn what a piece...
     
  10. forever_town

    forever_town Well-Known Member

    He nailed it. And you're right: Reading it was worth every second.
     
  11. The Commish

    The Commish Guest

    Simon asks "what the hell happened" to the news business in a Washington Post op-ed on Sunday. Headline -- on the Web at least -- is "Does the News Matter To Anyone Anymore?" Lots of comparisons to the auto industry.
     
  12. JayFarrar

    JayFarrar Well-Known Member

    I compare the news industry to the telephone business.
    For most telephone companies, they have been hit hard as the younger generation went strictly to cell phones and ditched the land lines.
    I'm 37, I haven't had a land line since October 2001. Most people my age don't have land lines either.
    But after the inital shock phone companies began to make adjustments. Offer high speed internet, bundle services along with the phone line. So now phone companies, like the newspapers, are the classic slowth growth investment. Profit margins are high since the infrastructure is already in place, but the explosive returns aren't there.
    You'll always have a certain segment of the population that wants a land line. For some its because they want satellite TV or internet. For others its because they've always had one and will always need one.
    Papers are the same way.
     
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