9:52 AM me: we got a comment on the blog
it's from my friend in Afghanistan
9:53 AM Manny: You can tell him nobody's paying for that stuff
9:54 AM He loves war reporters
me: you mean the citizens won't pay?
Manny: obviously not
or they'd be paying now
9:55 AM me: Isn't it important and doesn't someone need to be doing it regardless
?
Manny: doing what?
me: People only pay for things that are stupid
Manny: There's a War On!
We're There Watching!
For exciting explosions, buy the times?
sorry
9:56 AM me: that's the point, someone needs to actually report on it
Manny: yes, and things that are worth paying for
but what are you learning?
The troops are brave?
People are dying?
still?
that's not value added
me: no, you're learning how the taliban makes it's money off of drugs
Manny: Knew that
9:57 AM from 10 years ago
20
and defense department press releases
me: no, the question is how
9:58 AM how do they do it now?
How is it possible that the taliban still makes 600 million in opium sales a year?
Manny: geography, baby
9:59 AM me: so you're saying it's impossible to go after the drugs? That people don't know where they are? The taliban themselves do all the trafficking from the farm on, how fucking hard can it be to catch them?
10:00 AM Manny: I'm saying what do we learn?
We can't stop drugs at the mexican border
Or Port Elizabeth
And narcocartels really suck
me: I would like investigative journalists in those places figuring out what the fuck is going on also
10:01 AM Manny: what do you think is going on?
People are getting blowed up.
often by our well-meaning, lower soci-economic status teens
or blowing them up in return
war is kinda the same
people die horribly
repeatedly
10:02 AM me: That part I know and I understand it pretty well because of the work of, in part, journalists
Manny: really?
me: I think so
10:03 AM Manny:our newspapers cheerlead for warthen, make some additional money selling us pictures of them
me: It's true, they do
Manny: then make some other money criticizing them later
but not much money
10:04 AM me: but you're saying they do nothing else of value? forcing the issue on detainee abuse or some other shit that actually might get changed isn't occasionally worth it?
Manny: I'm sorry? Did the times force that issue? Did I miss that?
me: I'm just saying
Manny: They can't even say "torture."
10:05 AM me: Listen, I agree, but the question he raises is specifically about the value of a certain kind of work that only these journalists support.
I mean these papers
support
the journalists
Manny: yes, like the Boston Globe
10:06 AM me: right
Manny: Dexter Filkins will get a job
I'm not worried about it
so will CJ Chivers
he was in the marines
people will cover the war
they think it's romantic
10:07 AM me: well, it is kind of serious also. People die. I want to know something about it from someone who was there. Also, what about the guy covering the cop beat at the globe. he's switching professions right?
10:08 AM Manny: A few points: 1) the quote the reader is attributing to me (and was erroneously attributed to me on this blog) is actually from Al Giordano (http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/black-and-white-and-dead-all-over)
10:09 AM 2) most news was and is crap
90 percent of your daily paper is filler
the times has good arts and foreign coverage
10:10 AM its other work duplicates the work of 100 places, including wire services, smaller papers, USA Hooray and so on
I'm not giving the times a trophy for their war coverage
10:11 AM that's what they do
10:12 AM me: You mean in pj's comment? Am I missing quotation marks?
or do you mean he's mis-atributing?
10:13 AM I agree basically with everything you say here. I also think that someone will cover the police if there's value in it.
10:14 AM Manny: there's value in it
just not in the bundled product
people used to buy a package with the paper -- arts, foreign, classifieds
the sum was greater than the parts
me: right. Someone, perhaps our friend, will also cover the war
Manny: yes
or generals will start blogging
me: right
10:15 AM or just everyone will
you will need sorting mechanisms ever more and not bundles
10:16 AM Manny: or afghanis who are getting blowed up
yeah
bloomberg doesn't, in theory, cover anything that doesn't immediately make money
me: so, not schools
10:26 AM Manny: sure
harvard
wharton
ed will be covered by and for those interested
10:27 AM me: of course
Manny: papers used to leverage the part of people would pay for -- crosswords, classifieds, celebrity nipple slips -- to pay for the stuff they wouldn't
that's not going to work anymore
its safd
sad
it's just over
10:28 AM people WOULD pay to watch things blow up for awhile
when we first started blowing people up
10:29 AM me: right
10:31 AM it's not really a question of value, although there is a serious value problem, it's really a question of reality and economics
hence, the success of the sorting mechanism
10:33 AM Manny: The People have already proven they prefer TMZ.com to policy debates
take a look at the most-emailed list at the times
CJ rarely makes the cut
10:35 AM I don't even know what I'm arguing here, just that the economic model is not good for times-style, parachute journalism
you know what's cheap? Hearing from actual afghans
which, when they get electricity, we eventually will
10:36 AM the internet is great at putting me directly in touch with experts
10:37 AM me: I agree
10:42 AM Manny: I'm just saying that the world our friend and I trained for at J-school no longer exists
Dexter Filkins won't be the last war dude, but he'll be the last one sucking down metro dept resources while he globe-trots
10:43 AM people always want to cover war
it's harder to get them to want to cover the school board
me: word
10:49 AM Manny: the other thing about our friend's argument is that the times is necessary because it employs good journalists
10:50 AM that's a tautology
good journalists are neccessary
Times Corp.'s debt is not
nor is their ownership of the Boston Red Sox
or a billion-dollar office tower they couldn't afford
10:51 AM in fact, the providence journal used to bring me the work of CJ Chivers
me: word
10:53 AM Manny: the only story on the front page of the web site right now that is "unique'' to the times is one about gay couples heading to greenwich to get married
10:54 AM the rest of it is the same stuff we're covering
and AP
and reuters
and the bloody huffington post
10:57 AM Printed without irony in today's story about a jailed American student studying in Italy:
Knox may not feel the same way. She spent nearly a year in jail without being charged. This, despite the fact that the only physical evidence found on the murder victim’s body was from someone else – a drifter with a drug problem named Rudy Guede.
Oh no! Italy locks people up without charging them!
America would never do that
12:36 PM me: dude, like none of my students ever get locked up without cause
Also, we don't just sometimes go grab italian nationals off the street and take them to secret CIA jail
12:37 PM Manny: what our friend isnt yet cynical enough to believe is that the media is hopelessly middlebrow, even at the highest end
12:38 PM its all about our team, our world, it has very narrow limits and no imagination
12:39 PM me: I agree, that's why new sources will emerge to some extent and people will continue to get crappy news to some extent
