Tim Sprinkle

Is civil debate possible on the Internet?

The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal says "yes," and suggests that paywalls might help us get there.

I like this idea, especially given the fact that online anonymity contributes to people acting more like jerks than they would face-to-face. If charging a small fee for access (and thereby revealing each reader's real name, etc) changes that, I say it's an experiment worth trying. The web is a great place for the free exchange of ideas, but when it becomes home to endless pages of crackpot rantings and political screed, we all lose.

An idea that's been gaining traction this year is that it's the anonymity provided by the Internet that has turned many commenters into vicious jerks, so newspapers should require people to use their real names. Certainly Twitter has a much nicer tone, perhaps because all the nasty things people might say would be attached to their name and face. But how do you enforce such a provision? To my knowledge, there haven't been many serious attempts.

A small paper based in Attleboro, Massachusetts near the state's border with Rhode Island, has an idea. Henceforth, to comment at The Sun Chronicle you'll need to pay 99 cents... with a credit card. And the name on your comments will be the name on your card.

End of the Line for News Romantics

The BBC's Andrew Marr takes on the changing face of the news business, explaining why it's an exciting time for journalists. In fact, he calls the future "liberating for those that want to keep up with events."

The question, of course, is whether or not anyone will want to keep up with the news anymore, when it's not packaged and presented in easy, familiar ways.

I think it isn't long before in news terms, there is hardly any distinction between broadcasting and newspapers. This singularity is almost here.

On my iPad, I will follow a political crisis in real time, merging commentators and video clips, a little bit of Nick Robinson here and some Simon Jenkins there.

A screen is a book, a news magazine, a film screen, an audio feed. The BBC and the Times will more than ever find themselves jostling in the same business, not casting, not printing but two newsbrokers. Words change their meaning all the time: perhaps "newsagent" is next.

There are dangers and sadnesses embedded in the shift. There's the problem of endlessness and ubiquity. If something is always available, like tap water, you tend to value it less.

As news ceases to be gathered round the event of a big-guns bulletin, or a wad of Sunday newsprint, it bubbles along and becomes easier, not harder, to disregard.

Time to Get Indecent

A federal appeals court in New York on Tuesday struck down the FCC's so-called "indecency rule," saying that agency's the zero tolerance prohibition on "fleeting expletives" on TV and radio violated the First Amendment protection to free speech.

Needless to say, this is a major victory for broadcasters (though what impact it will have on various outstanding fines remains to be seen).

The L.A. Times (still in business) has a good take on the situation:

The court said that policy on so-called fleeting expletives was "unconstitutionally vague" and created a "chilling effect" on the programming that broadcasters chose to air. The court echoed complaints from network executives that the FCC's standards were nearly impossible to gauge, noting that the agency allowed the airing of the f-word and s-word in broadcasts of the World War II movie "Saving Private Ryan" but not in the PBS miniseries "The Blues."

"Under the current policy, broadcasters must choose between not airing or censoring controversial programs and risking massive fines or possibly even loss of their licenses, and it is not surprising which option they choose," U.S. Circuit Judge Rosemary S. Pooler wrote in Tuesday's 3-0 decision. "Indeed, there is ample evidence in the record that the FCC's indecency policy has chilled protected speech."

Fox Broadcasting Co., which was the lead plaintiff on the case, cheered the ruling. But Carter G. Phillips, the network's attorney on the case, said it would not lead to a flood of indecent content between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., when the FCC's restrictions are in place because children are most likely to be watching or listening.

He noted that even though networks are free to air expletives after 10 p.m., such as on late-night talk shows, they rarely do.

"I think they'll continue to be sensitive to what their audience wants, but not go crazy in trying to avoid any other expletives at any time," he said.

What their audiences want? Not what the government says is appropriate? What a concept.

Citizen journalism isn’t making up for loss of local newspapers

Too bad for local news. But maybe this failed experiment in "citizen journalism" is a good thing. Once communities realize that they need professional local news outlets to get the kind of information they want, they'll find a way to start paying for it again.

Via Ars Technica:

Since the economics of print are unlikely to revert back to those of the medium's heyday, many of the people who have tracked local news have raised the prospect that some form of citizen journalism, either in the form of blogs or organized volunteer news sites, might take up the slack. One of the references cited by the authors of the new survey even suggested that, given the interactive nature of many blog sites, they might actually promote public debate in a way that more traditional media could not.

To get a sense of how well new media was substituting for the old, the authors chose a random assortment of 45 cities of various sizes, and threw in Chicago to ensure that at least one of the three largest markets was represented. Within those markets, they identified over 363 online journalism sites, which spanned the range from ad-free blogs to what they call "legacy" sites, those run by traditional news outlets. In addition, they scanned the academic literature on modern journalism, and identified 60 sites that were well regarded as providing good or innovative approaches to covering local issues.

...

Summing up, the authors paint a fairly grim picture of the state of local news. "Despite hopes for a thriving genre of citizen journalism as at least a partial replacement for legacy journalism, those hopes have not been realized," they conclude. "In content and coverage, CitJ [citizen journalism] lags behind legacy web sites on a variety of dimensions considered indicative of news quality."

That may be the case, but there are a couple of other ways to view the survey results. For starters, it appears that fans of traditional media should celebrate the results: legacy sites have identified many of the promising participatory features of citizen journalism, and embraced them. Discussions, content hosting, and online interactivity all feature prominently on the legacy sites now.

Time Moves to Limit Free Content Online

From the (still more or less free) New York Times:

Time has decided to dive headfirst into an issue that has bedeviled many a news organization before it: how to cure online readers of their addiction to free content.

But Time’s approach is more a process of weaning readers than forcing them to quit cold turkey. Starting this week, it replaced most of the content that appeared in its current issue with abridged articles and summaries online. The move is meant to drive readers to newsstands and Time’s iPad applications, where the magazine costs $4.99.

Had to happen sooner or later. I guess we'll have to wait and see if it works. Hoping it does, though, since this is probably Time's last chance at survival.