Simmons and Klosterman on death of newspapers ...

Just before he joined the WWL.com, Simmons tried to write a newspaper-sized column for a magazine that covers the Red Sox. He was horrible at it - absolutely brutal. Could not write to the 700 word space.

Good for him, that he found his place, but it was never, ever going to be at a newspaper, not in a million years. Some people are good at some things and bad at others, and BS was bad at newspaper. The only thing blocking him at the Herald was himself.

 

Well, they do have a thing called college.

 

Oh, for fuck's sake.
That may be the case. It may not be.
But it's not the reason newspapers are failing. It's not within the same geological epoch of why newspapers are failing. It's not the same area code of the same ballpark of why newspapers are failing. The Boston Herald would be in exactly the same shape it's in right now even if it had given the genius that is Bill Simmons the job he apparently believes he was warranted from birth.

 

Back to the communism thing quick - i was under the impression part of communism was people working jobs and everyone being paid the same. Part of the reason it floundered was most didn't bother working, so people who did work also stopped working.

Is that not even in the ballpark?

And TSP, I managed to keep myself out of history class except for one on early American history.

 

It's kind of, sort of in the ballpark.

I'd call that the "Overly simplistic argument written for a libertarian public relations group's marketing pamphlet targeted at indoctrinating sixth-graders."

 

Think you just described the textbooks at the high school i went to, which was described by a cable network for it's popular television show as part of the "inner city."

 

I wish Bill had gotten his wish and gotten promoted pronto, at his shop or another one. Then he likely would've been laid off or been non-renewed by now, and then he'd actually have a legit beef with newspapers.

Klosterman is quite intelligent and often interesting, although I personally find him and many of his views insufferable. I always consider it a significant endorsement of a man/woman if I find them interesting even if I strongly disagree with some/much of what they have to say. Klosterman falls into this group for me

 

As much as I admire the work of both these fellas from time to time, I can't think of two people less qualified to weigh in on the matter.

And we need to do a mandatory unit on political, economic and philosophical systems of the world through history right away.

 

Examples, pls?

 

Let's take the union issue first. If unions contribute to the economic decline of newspapers, then newspaper companies with few or no unions should be doing better than those with unions. MediaNews and Tribune Co., come on down and show us that balance sheet!
Simmons and Klosterman are talented phrasemakers who have made good careers out of talking through their hats. They are opining on a subject on which neither guy has done the slightest bit of reporting-making them just another pair of assholes down at the end of the bar as far as I'm concerned.
Newspapers should have done a better job handling the Internet! Presumably, Klosterman's next insight will be where to find the Lindbergh baby.

 

Klosterman has beaten this horse before. I think he's got a valid point. In an "Esquire" column, I believe, he wrote how he has a difficult time getting his head around any breaking news story because of how fast and furious the updates come now. He used the Kobe trade rumors a couple summers ago as his example. There was so much misinformation mixed with non-stories coming out four times a day that he had no idea by the end of the day what had actually happened. There was no coherent narrative, which newspapers and, even moreso, news weeklies like Time and Newseek and SI can provide on big stories. His theory was that people are less informed than they used to be as a result of being more informed.

My biggest issue with these two is that every 22-year-old coming out of college now thinks that he's the next one. Drives me batty. And I've talked to so many of them who say it all nonchalantly: "I kind of have a Chuck Klosterman-type style. I kind of see things that way - all random! I was thinking of trying to maybe get a column in Vanity Fair or GQ or maybe ESPN.com if that doesn't work out, a humor type of column kind of like Bill Simmons. Do you know who that is? He's great."

 

All you Simmons haters out there, take a deep breath.
He didn't say newspapers are failing because he didn't get a columnist job.
His rant about that came as part of a stream in which he talked about good, talented writers fleeing newspapers because they saw this sort of glass ceiling, and as good young writers left the business for magazines and the internet, the product stayed stale.

On a personal note, that's one of the five reasons I left my last job at a major metro. I looked at all the major beats, all the people who were firmly entrenched in those beats and found myself wondering, "What's next? Preps for the next five years before I *hope* that someone moves on, when that's not very likely?" Was I a bit cocky, no. I was a lot cocky. But at the same time, there's not exactly a lot of turnover in major beats. There's something to be said for continuity, but writers can sure get stale.