Tuesday, October 25, 2005

I want my news for free

This week's blog assignment is to go off your blog topic and write an essay in response to this article in the New York Times "Why Should You Pay to Read This Newspaper". Post your response on your own blog. Write about your own news habits - how do you get your news? Also, talk about other kinds of content you use - music, movies, books, magazines, - what are you willing to pay for? How much a month roughly do you spend on media content? What do you get for free? How have your habits changed over the past few years? What technology has enabled some of these changes? Examine other questions - is the news worth paying for? What is the future of paid news content? How are these news organizations going to stay in business if no one is buying the product? What does this mean for your future as a journalist or other profession? Your essay should be posted on your blog by next Tuesday (November 1).

2 comments:

Grant said...

Although I'm not in the same "generational genre" as your students, this is still a tough (and important) question in an era where it's easy to become victim of information overload. It's therefore critical to be extremely selective about news and information sources--according to available time left over after essential activities such as family, work, eating, and sleeping an hour or two--after which the cost factor may become a factor. I'd love to know how others cope with this daunting task.

prof_matson said...

It's true - there is so much out there as far as news and content - it can be overwhelming to keep up with it all. And because I teach journalism I feel it's important to stay on top of all of it as much as I can. I, myself, have a huge bookmarked list of news sites and blogs that I try to read every day. Then I have a list of ones I try to read once a week. On top of that, I have a huge pile of magazines and books next to my bed that just gets larger. Plus I have three blogs myself that need attending to. And more important, I have a 3-year-old who I spend most of my time focused on. One reason I love sites like Romenesko's media page (http://poynter.org/column.asp?id=45) is because he does the work of compiling headlines related to media issues and I can skim these and read the ones of interest. I think most journalists are dependent on this site to stay on top of media news and gossip. If there was a site like this for every topic out there, it would make life much easier!