Daily Archives: March 13, 2007

In 1977, I discovered Elvis Costello, the Clash, the Sex Pistols, Blondie, Talking Heads, the Ramones and Devo. I cut my hair and started buying all my closes at the Salvation Army. Me and four friends, formed what we called a band and made a lot of racket in our drummer’s garage. We were punks.

I think by 1978, there were eight punks in my high school.

Everybody else thought we were idiots. I heard all the time how our music sucked. The guitarists couldn’t play, the singers couldn’t sing and the songs were stupid.

In 1990, my class had it’s ten year reunion. The music the DJ played was not the music of my class. It wasn’t the Bee Gees and Journey and ELO. It was Costello, the Clash, the Talking Heads, the B52′s and Devo. Everybody danced. Nobody complained.

In the late 1970s, if you picked up a copy of Rolling Stone you were as likely to read a glowing article about the punk revolution as you were to read some grizzled old rocker complaining about how the punks only knew three chords. It wasn’t real music and it would never catch on. It would never be more popular than the Eagles or Jackson Browne.

Of course, about 15 years later, Nirvana would come along and become, for a short time, the biggest band in the world.

In the late 1970s, four lads from Dublin decided they wanted to be in a band. Only one of them, Dave Evans, had ever even played a musical instrument before. The first songs they played were those three-chord rippers of the Ramones. Eventually, of course, all four would all become accomplished musicians and master songwriters. Today, U2 is one of the biggest and greatest bands in history.

The DIY culture of punk transformed popular music and opened the door for countless musicians.

I see the same thing happening with the DIY culture of web video. The old guard doesn’t understand the devil-may-care punks, and the punks are full of bluster and cocky self assurance well beyond their actual abilities.

Meanwhile, videos like this, are among the most popular on the web. Continue reading →

Tweet

It’s been three years since Vin Crosbie (one of the smartest people in our industry) released his renowned essay on what newspapers need to do to survive. The article had a profound impact on the industry. Even if not all of his recommendations were implemented, the article marked a dramatic shift in the industry from post-dot-com-bubble-bust retrenching to taking online more seriously.

Now Crosbie is promising an equally profound essay on why newspaper sites have failed to reach critical mass. Right now, he’ll only tell us what is not wrong:

• The major problem isn’t ownership of newspapers by publicly traded corporations. Wall Street isn’t the problem. Newspaper readership has been steadily declining since the 1960s, well before most American newspapers were became owned by publicly traded companies. The layoffs and cutbacks that such companies are now making wouldn’t be made if readership and circulation were increasing. In other words, the layoffs and cutbacks are in reaction to the problem, not the cause of the problem. Yes, cutting newsroom staff doesn’t help increase readership and circulation, but it isn’t the cause of the decreases in readership and circulation.
• The major problem isn’t lack of ‘Citizen Journalism.’ It is true that most American newspapers lost touch with their readers and many also ‘talk down’ to the readers who remain. There are many worthwhile ‘citizen journalism’ experiments underway at some American newspapers, and the tools those use can be widely applied throughout the industry. However, American newspapers thrived for centuries without ‘citizen journalism’ and advocates of it should why and what changed.
• The major problem isn’t print’s lack of interactivity or multimedia. American newspapers thrived for centuries without interactivity or multimedia. Why and what changed?
• Nor is the major problem newsprint itself. People today aren’t forsaking paper, just what newspaper companies print on it.

As usual, Crosbie’s essay should make for interesting reading. Continue reading →

Tweet

Praized Blog quotes an LA Times article:

News organizations confronted with declining revenue and increased competition are entering an era of more limited ambition in which they will drop a broad worldview for more narrowly focused reporting, according to an annual review of the news business being released today by a watchdog group.

Why does focusing on local equate to “reduced ambitions”?

I’ve spent my entire news career in what is now called “hyperlocal.” I can’t think of any higher journalistic calling. That’s not to say it’s higher than national or foreign coverage, but there is nothing especially golden about being a beltway reporter, except that we have perversely elevated these people to star status. Continue reading →

Tweet

In response to a post by Greg Sterling about teens reading more books, I left this comment:

Before the web, you sat in front the TV and passively consumed media.

In the Internet era, one must be literate, even if your communication consists largely of “brb” and “ltr,” etc.

The web demands more reading.

It demands, like a good book, more active participation.

While this report is surprising, I think it’s understandable.

And I’ll add, once you discover the joys of reading and writing, it’s hard to stop. Continue reading →

Tweet

Good column from Steve Outing for E&P on the importance of putting the “distributed” in your distributed media strategies, but not one mention of Creative Commons. Continue reading →

Tweet