« May 2012 | Main | July 2012 »
Happy Bloomsday, y'all!
A few things continue to percolate w/r/t the Times-Picayune fiasco. If you'll bear with me for a moment, a couple of concepts:
1) Once upon a time, cities had robust streetcar networks. For a nominal daily fee, any citizen could ride to work, the cinema, or the doctor. In time, a different system took hold, which involved a large initial investment, and greater ongoing costs, in exchange for greater convenience. People liked their cars, however, and eventually streetcar networks withered. Folks who could afford it could drive themselves to work and back in air-conditioned privacy, while those who could not, did not.
By the same token, newspapers shifting to digital platforms represent a massive cost shift from producer to consumer. Instead of giant printing plants, trucks, and kids on bikes that the newspaper pays for in order to put the newspaper in a reader's lap, the reader pays for a laptop/tablet/smartphone, as well as broadband access. Just like with streetcars, many consumers were willing to pay extra for the convenience, while those who can't afford it don't get to read the news.
2) This relatively invisible disparity echoes the way the word "privilege" has been used in recent years - at least in academic contexts. Basically, privilege reframes something taken for granted as a special perk accruing to a given identity, rather than making that perk the norm. So, if you can shop at the Gap without being followed around by store security, that's white privilege; if you can walk the most direct route home from the bar without worrying about being raped, that's male privilege. The insidious thing about privilege is that it's like a tiara you can wear, but not see for yourself. The CollegeHumor video below is funny, but also suggested to me that it's time to start thinking about digital privilege, and the stakes of radically asymmetrical access to the online world for rich folks and poor folks. Presumably, the creators and consumers of this video live in a world where everyone has an iPad or at least a smartphone, and access to robust wifi, both on and off campus. I will keep linking to this map, and mention that this census data suggest that a tablet computer and the monthly broadband nut would be a challenge for many New Orleans families. And who would want to live in a city where it's diffcult for poor people to get access to news?
At first blush, the Cod was shocked, like many, that lead restaurant critic Brett Anderson was among 33% of Times-Picayune employees pinkslipped yesterday. After all, New Orleans is nothing if not a food town, and if your paper is getting leaner and meaner, doing more with less, etc, etc, you would focus on strengths, like your Beard-winning restaurant ciritc, and cut elsewhere, right?
Maybe, maybe not. What follows is uninformed speculation, and I would love to be wrong. As the boss announces here, the Times-Pic is becoming a digitally focused news organization. That's a fancy way of saying that going forward, you will be more of a website, and less of a newspaper. There are serious issues concerning this platform shift -- going digital shifts costs from publishers to readers, who are responsible for having access to a device and broadband to consume the news product -- but it's not just a platform shift. In theory, a "digitally focused news organization" could take advantage of lower production costs to be a trimmer and tougher news outlet. In practice, the web side of news organizations seem to rely on reader-submitted content. So, instead of more sustained investigative journalism, you get more pictures of readers' pets dressed up in the colors of the local NFL franchise. For example, the Boston Globe's Pulitzer-winning coverage of Catholic sex abuse was a product of the print edition; Boston.com today has a feature on funny license plates.
The sad truth is, you can have a "food section" like this without paying a critic. If your readers will click and argue and generate pageviews fighting over what's the best roast beef po-boy, why pay Brett Anderson? Indeed, a single, qualified voice will sometimes be contrarian, while a mass of reader comments by definition represent conventional wisdom, which is what makes advertisers comfortable. It's possible to imagine a critic like Brett Anderson revealing that a new venture from a beloved chef ain't all that, or worse still, that a beloved institution is slipping. It's very hard to imagine one could learn the truth about brunch at Commander's Palace from a swarm of reader comments. If pageviews, rather than restaurant criticism, is your news organization's goal, a real restaurant critic is unnecessary, and possibly detrimental. The future of restaurant criticism in newspapers looks more like Yelp than it does like Anton Ego. The Cod suggests that ambitious NOLA restaurauteurs make sure they have plenty of dishes with brains on the menu.
So, following this link
Brings you here:
Evidently, eviscerating a major metropolitan daily is not news.
Anchower, I know. But! The Cod saw where there was a thing in the NYT about bowfin caviar from Louisiana. The keeneyed Cinetrix pointed out that there is a little bit of a fishegg beef up in:
Certainly, the good people at the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University warm the Cod's heart with their linguistic precision (no "vodka gimlets" for them, one imagines), but they do have a dog, er, sturgeon in this fight, in that UGA produces its own sturgeon caviar. Considering that it says right on the can "They have Gatorade... we have caviar," in a not very subtle dig against the University of Florida, it's clear that Dr. Peterson, distinguished ichthyologist though he may be, is engaged in some good old fashioned SEC trolling of Louisana's caviar pretensions.
Our friend Dan checks in from Greenbrier Farms:
NB, Smithfield.
Recent Comments