The End of the Free Internet
Linked by David Adams on Sun 11th Jul 2010 18:54 UTC
Internet & Networking There's an article today at abc.com that looks at recent trends around net-based pay-for services and the smattering of paywalls from News Corp to the NYT that are up or threatening to be put up, and speculating that this could be the beginning of a trend. Of course, a YouTube video rental site and a few large publishers putting up paywalls will make zero difference to the "free internet" on their own. But if they're successful, it could spark emulation. But could this be a trend that could snowball enough to change the nature of the net?
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RE[4]: Comment by t3RRa
by ssa2204 on Tue 13th Jul 2010 00:32 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: Comment by t3RRa"
ssa2204
Member since:
2006-04-22

Not true, first on the scene will be the disaster tourist that live near it, texting, mailing and twittering away.

For example there was a forest fire near me in the Netherlands, I could see a huge smoke cloud out of my window (a actually started that last woird capital w..:S )
I looked at all the dutch news websites but there was nothing there, I looked at twitter and there everybody knew where the fire was, people went there and took pictures. A long time later there started coming articles in on the news sites, but it only contained information they garthered from Twitter and all the pictures where submitted by there audiences.

The old rules have changed, now journalist get ther einformation from the people instead of the other way around.
That's why today's "journalist" are spending most of there time Twittering. Lois & Clark are dying or death.


Ok, so please tell me how many bloggers were embedded with the U.S. 3rd ID on the march to Baghdad (I seem to remember CNN was there), and how many sat on their asses in their bath robes watching it all on CNN? How many bloggers were in the Green Zone during the rise of the insurgency? How many left the safety of the Green Zone to really cover the story (Look up Michael Ware please)? Has a single blogger ever faced death or serious injury reporting? No, tripping over the cat on the way to the fridge does not count.

The idea that you can equate what some fat losers write on the safety of their computers tucked away in the basement with people who are actually professionals is an insult, especially all those that have lost their lives bringing you this information. The same info that fatboy re-posts on his blog.

But never mind, I guess I should just ignore the professionals, those that have been educated and spent time building up sources in favor of some anonymous shmuck who will give me lots of opinionated bullshit over any substance. So what your telling me now is that we should simply accept that some high school drop out who spends his days idling away on Twitter is what you want to rely on for information? And what in-depth analysis do you expect out of this?

You can have your Twitter, Facebook, and all that iReporting crap. I will take my NY Times over that in a heartbeat, and know full well at the end of the day I will be the wiser one for it. So good luck, we truly are living in a god damn decadent generation that wishes to just fucking embrace ignorance.

Reply Parent Score: 1

RE[5]: Comment by t3RRa
by nt_jerkface on Tue 13th Jul 2010 01:52 in reply to "RE[4]: Comment by t3RRa"
nt_jerkface Member since:
2009-08-26


The idea that you can equate what some fat losers write on the safety of their computers tucked away in the basement with people who are actually professionals is an insult, especially all those that have lost their lives bringing you this information. The same info that fatboy re-posts on his blog.

...

You can have your Twitter, Facebook, and all that iReporting crap. I will take my NY Times over that in a heartbeat, and know full well at the end of the day I will be the wiser one for it. So good luck, we truly are living in a god damn decadent generation that wishes to just fucking embrace ignorance.


I'll take the fat losers because I know they will at least give me a variety of news and opinion that I can't get from the mainstream media. I'd rather not get my news from a bunch of New Yorkers that readily admit to their own bias:
http://www.studentnewsdaily.com/biased-item/ny-times-nicholas-krist...

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[5]: Comment by t3RRa
by righard on Tue 13th Jul 2010 06:11 in reply to "RE[4]: Comment by t3RRa"
righard Member since:
2007-12-26

The only place where normal civilians can't cover something are places where they may not come because they're not press or places where there communication are hampered i.e. places with censorship and all that. But those situations are artificial.

Also the journalist who do go to such places are few, very few (and decreasing). The rest just go to there desk, copy there biased story, change some words (on a good day that is). Maybe if they're trained in actually covering something them self, they might go to some trade show and make some unintended commercial.

...why am I so grumpy? Well I wanted to become a journalist, but became very disappointed with there lazy buzz-word and Internet-hype obsessed culture. I really think the state of journalism is very poor at the moment. (And haven't got any sleep last night ;)

EDIT: I have to admit that I think it to be worse in the Netherlands here journalist respect things as 'No questions please'. Real investigation is nothing more than asking the, by definition extremal biased, spokesman.

EDITEDIT: I have the spelling of an ox.

Edited 2010-07-13 06:23 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 4