Life As It Goes By

In Dec 2007, I posted an article “Personal Journalling” on this website. At that time, I had thought of how an individual can setup a website that does the same as what any big newspaper or media companies do for delivering the news and opinions in print.

I have since kept this thought aside (I am also having a hard time updating the content of this website). However, the recent news of failure in some media companies have brought me back to this frame of thinking. I knew I was right to say that personal journalism posed a threat to the media companies. What I would like to know is how big impact the would be and what is going to happen in the future.

Firstly, I would like to share my own experience for the past year. It was not easy for 1 person to man this website. Coming up with ideas is one thing. Finding time and energy to sit down and write an article is another. What turns out may not always be what is planned in the beginning. On top of that, I become aware that I am in need of an editor. Not only as someone who checks on my work but also filter the funny ideas I have in mind.

To sum it up, it’s not really easy. Setting up a website requires knowledge on Internet programming which I have picked up along the way. It’s fun but time-consuming too. Even today, I can’t say confidently that I am very comfortable with my skill levels. My true interest is really to create more interesting contents, not making website work functionally or as beautiful as one can imagine. There are also issues with the contents generated. Do they really suit the taste of everyone? Do they state the right facts or analysis? I have once read about some professor complaining about websites that provide contents of low standards, degrading the food of thought. Wrong sources of information are given and readers are being mis-led.

Perhaps personal journalism, which is something like a blog, doesn’t have a very high, direct impact on these companies. Web technologies are the ones with the most direct impact on them. Moving from print to web becomes a must in the media industry. While most media companies have already access to the worldwide network of newsstands, they can’t have them opened 24 hours. There are even no vending machines for magazines. Even if there was, there would still be a time when the news in the magazines and newspapers are out-dated. On top of that, these machines are dull-looking and a complete eye sore. Who cares about them when there is so much excitement and fun in the Web?

The news of troubled Tribune Co raised the alarm in my mind. Does this mean the change of an era? I definitely see more advertisement online. Though I have seen them more than once on the same website, I don’t find them bothering me too much. The graphics and presentation of these ads are comparable to those in TV and cinemas (and definitely better than those static ones in papers). Additionally, I can google immediately to find out more or simply click on the ad. This change did not happen two or three years ago. It was way long before that. Maybe it’s around when Bill Gates talked about business at the speed of thought…

Like the so-called airtime in the broadcasting world, media companies such as newspapers and magazine need to demand same type of attention from its readers. If readers are moving to the Web, then these companies would have to do the same way. Companies such as New York Times and BusinessWeek have been adapting well (relatively). It’s tough. Yes, we all know. The right business model hasn’t appeared yet. But survival is important too. Web presents a channel for innovation, something that some of these media companies have forgotten. I don’t mean coming up with eye-catching advertisments or headlines. I mean the way of communicating directly with the readers. When you read an interesting article in the paper, you just stop there. You can’t go further. You can’t point to the writer which part is so right or wrong. You can’t express your own way because it’s always in one direction. Not only this, to get some news out to a reader in the past, the media company needs to check the layout and colors of the pages before printing and once printed, it has to load up the trucks for distribution. It’s a long and expensive (in terms of resources involved) process. Everything is so much easier using the Web. If you don’t like at any time, you can retrieve it and upload an updated version. Everybody is cool about it. You can’t do so for the print version.

Finally, personal journalism, I think, would come one day. It’s about the ability to do so. There is little barrier to creating personal website. Anyone who loves to write should be encouraged to do so. He or she just need to enlist help from those Web savvy users and make sure there is a feedback channel installed on his or her website. Things will improve along the way. I believe we are all curious about all kinds of stuff whether they are true or not. It doesn’t matter who says or sees it first. News are meant to be spread and the Web provides the perfect medium. It’s impossible for a website to deliver news of great accuracy, just like a newscaster or reporter can’t guarantee that the piece of news on her or his hand is the absolute truth. We are in the Information Age where information exchange takes place not only in 2 ways but also multiple ways. The result of this is a better informed reader, as well as a writer. We all grew smarter by asking questions and finding answers to them. We may be fooled many times but we learn to judge each fact and myth. Ultimately, we are still given the choices.

List of Tribune Co. assets

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_Tribune_Company