Is Real News Lost in Fluff and Puff?

September 22, 2011

Paul Carr rants on Tech Crunch on the increasing lack of professional, well-written content on the internet, triggered by the firing of Jack Shafer, media critic and editor-at-large, from Slate, the Washington Post’s online magazine.

The article, Now Can We All Agree That The “High Quality Web Content” Experiment Has Failed?, goes on to explain how this last straw is proof that professional journalism on the web is dead or dying. Either way, the future of thought-provoking writing will not be found online. The trigger for the write up was the information about Slate’s ability to generate revenue from high quality content. Two words, No dice.

Newspapers and magazines, with their subscription numbers plummeting, ran to the internet in an effort to reclaim some of their precious readers and accompanying advertising dollars. Unfortunately, the internet is awash with news and it seems that readers don’t appreciate high-quality writing like they used to. With online advertising constantly eating away at quality in an attempt to beef up ad sales, the online article is losing value at an alarming rate.

So what is a respected, knowledgeable news source to do? Carr explains:

Increasingly the best writing and reporting is to be found in books and Kindle Singles, where readers are happy to pay directly for high-quality information and entertainment. As Web content continues to get dumber, and more ethically compromised, the market for high quality content away from the web will continue to grow.

Carr might be right about the growing market of for-fee news, but always the optimist, I believe there is still hope for legitimate reporting on the internet. Much like journalism has had to adapt several times before the most recent techno-revolution. CNN paid $20 million for a eBook app.The allure of advertising wrapped in a dressing of free fluff calling itself news may satisfy the general Internet audience for now. Wait a few years, and I think that those interested in facts instead of Lady Gaga’s antics may be unable to discern fact from fiction, invention from reality. Yes, a brave new world may be under construction as I write this short item. Fluff and puff seem to have the upper hand at the moment.

Catherine Lamsfuss, September 22, 2011

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.