Speaking of the NYT...

I will take the PC and pixels over newspapers any day. Can't stand 'em - the cheap paper and ink that force you to wash your hands every time you touch them, the oversized pages that require constant crinkles and readjustments and all but foreclose 98% of the positions in which you are most comfortable reading a book, the lack of any binding making the whole thing a sloppy mess as soon as you open it (of course with all the surprise inserts falling out onto your floor), the constant need to shuffle through the thing to read the continuation of one single story sometimes spread out across multiple random pages, the difficulty of saving any article that you might actually want to save (requiring scissors, scotch tape, and a half hour of labor to paste the thing into a respectable page)... and that is even setting aside the laundry list of grievances one might have over the content.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
I will take the PC and pixels over newspapers any day. Can't stand 'em...
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I agree. Although it's not that I can't stand the newspapers. But it just seems like such a waste of paper, time, money, etc, because these daily newspapers are mostly just good for quick scanning and not really for 'reading'. At least for me.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Wow, you two guys are really removed from the joy of a newspaper. Too bad.
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I'll read the physical newspaper when I'm at someone else's house, or when my wife buys it. But there's not much difference for me.

Especially with laptops, you can lay in bed with those too!
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
I will take the PC and pixels over newspapers any day. Can't stand 'em - the cheap paper and ink that force you to wash your hands every time you touch them, the oversized pages that require constant crinkles and readjustments and all but foreclose 98% of the positions in which you are most comfortable reading a book, the lack of any binding making the whole thing a sloppy mess as soon as you open it (of course with all the surprise inserts falling out onto your floor), the constant need to shuffle through the thing to read the continuation of one single story sometimes spread out across multiple random pages, the difficulty of saving any article that you might actually want to save (requiring scissors, scotch tape, and a half hour of labor to paste the thing into a respectable page)... and that is even setting aside the laundry list of grievances one might have over the content.
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Considering that pretty much all internet news is regurgitated from good old fashioned print newrooms we better learn to love those papery things. Not too many journalists have figured out how to get a paycheck or support for investigative work from a web source nor is there a foreseeable solution on the table.
 
I get the Times delivered, every day. How prehistoric of me. But it still does something that not even StumbleUpon does, which is provide opportunities for serendipity: I read something that interests me that under other circumstances I'd never come across at all. Like Florence Fabricant touting Louis Martini Sonoma Cab as an "uptown wine."
 
originally posted by The Wine Mule:
I get the Times delivered, every day. How prehistoric of me. But it still does something that not even StumbleUpon does, which is provide opportunities for serendipity....
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Somehow, with kids and jobs and the easy lure of the Web,my newspaper habit fell away. But it was actually a good ones--a paper, a cup of coffee, crossword last, and then the day would begin. And this is one of the things I miss the most.

Now I spend a lot of time reading Web media, but I still occasionally buy a paper and I've discovered that I overlook important and interesting articles by reading exclusively on the web--I can't scan the pages as I used to. What I miss is usually in the back pages, and often local. I don't come across these articles easily on the web sites.

Also, though this may not have much to do with the web, I miss the sort of long(ish)-form journalism that, as a prime example, the LA Times used to practice in the 80s and early 90s--detailed news articles on complicated subjects that went on for 3 or 4 jumps and apparently bored everyone but me and maybe the awards committees.
 
There are two parts of this debate. One is how one wants to read one's news and the other is what news outlets one wants to read. I'm on the pro-newspaper side of both, but in terms of how one wants to read one's news, this is mostly preference. I read the newspapers in bed on weekend mornings and find it just as easy--moreso really--than a laptop. And coffee and newspapers in the morning before I go to work is now as ingrained in me as it is for Jim. I developed this habit following Watergate in the Times in grad school and there is still nothing like newspapers for following a developing story. But that's the second issue, on which I really think there is little question. Whatever bias the NY Times and Washington Post have (the second pretty clearly liberal, the first less clearly so, but obviously that) doesn't even compare to internet and TV outlets, which by intent market to niche ideologue markets. The front pages of these papers can be faulted for story and fact selection in ways that we hardly need to go through--though more usually in terms of backing winners than in terms of backing ideological sides--but at least they follow the usual protocols of neutrality. The other outlets, which have less content, less analysis, less of almost everything, don't even bother to try. To offer a fig leaf of neutrality of my own, while I don't read it regularly, the news and business pages of the Wall Street Journal have the same virtues as the Times and the Post, mostly, despite an editorial page that seems to have been written by the second generation of the Merovingian dynasty.
 
originally posted by The Wine Mule:
I get the Times delivered, every day. How prehistoric of me. But it still does something that not even StumbleUpon does, which is provide opportunities for serendipity: I read something that interests me that under other circumstances I'd never come across at all. Like Florence Fabricant touting Louis Martini Sonoma Cab as an "uptown wine."
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Same here. I will read the NYT online but greatly prefer browsing through the dirty newsprint version. The Fabricant quotation Wednesday made me guffaw. Or was it a "hoot"? I am not sure.

I think the NYT is destined to be one of the handful of newspapers that survive. I do fear that a controlling interest will one day be purchased by someone interested in making it "Fair and Balanced," or, maybe worse, someone naive enough to believe in "objectivity." I think famous American wine critics and political commentators may be among the last people to believe in the existence of such a thing.
 
originally posted by Bwood:
originally posted by The Wine Mule:
I get the Times delivered, every day. How prehistoric of me. But it still does something that not even StumbleUpon does, which is provide opportunities for serendipity: I read something that interests me that under other circumstances I'd never come across at all. Like Florence Fabricant touting Louis Martini Sonoma Cab as an "uptown wine."
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Same here. I will read the NYT online but greatly prefer browsing through the dirty newsprint version. The Fabricant quotation Wednesday made me guffaw. Or was it a "hoot"? I am not sure.

I think the NYT is destined to be one of the handful of newspapers that survive. I do fear that a controlling interest will one day be purchased by someone interested in making it "Fair and Balanced," or, maybe worse, someone naive enough to believe in "objectivity." I think famous American wine critics and political commentators may be among the last people to believe in the existence of such a thing.
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If one doesn't define objectivity as the state of being disinterestedly correct but rather as a set of protocols for controlling bias, it's a perfectly useful concept. I prefer journalism that follows protocols for neutrality (a slightly different concept) than those that don't. How to figure out how to arrive at accurate apprehensions of reality is a different matter.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
If one doesn't define objectivity as the state of being disinterestedly correct but rather as a set of protocols for controlling bias, it's a perfectly useful concept. I prefer journalism that follows protocols for neutrality (a slightly different concept) than those that don't. How to figure out how to arrive at accurate apprehensions of reality is a different matter.
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The difference between protocols for controlling bias and the popular view of "objective news" (or objective wine reviews, for that matter) is like the difference between ______________ and The New York Post/TBPG Wine Review. You have two minutes to complete this analogy.

Actually, I should look on the bright side. When some extreme right winger buys the NYT, I will be reading a fresh take on Thanksgiving wines, one that focuses on wines that pair well with moose.
 
originally posted by Bwood:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
If one doesn't define objectivity as the state of being disinterestedly correct but rather as a set of protocols for controlling bias, it's a perfectly useful concept. I prefer journalism that follows protocols for neutrality (a slightly different concept) than those that don't. How to figure out how to arrive at accurate apprehensions of reality is a different matter.
Click to expand...

The difference between protocols for controlling bias and the popular view of "objective news" (or objective wine reviews, for that matter) is like the difference between ______________ and The New York Post/TBPG Wine Review. You have two minutes to complete this analogy.

Actually, I should look on the bright side. When some extreme right winger buys the NYT, I will be reading a fresh take on Thanksgiving wines, one that focuses on wines that pair well with moose.
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Alas, I think I agree with every single word in this post--except maybe the moose part. I've tasted moose.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
I prefer journalism that follows protocols for neutrality (a slightly different concept) than those that don't.
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As someone whose peer group regularly suffers the misapplication of these protocols, I applaud you.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
I prefer journalism that follows protocols for neutrality (a slightly different concept) than those that don't.
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As someone whose peer group regularly suffers the misapplication of these protocols, I applaud you.
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Which peer group is that? Academics? Atheist leftists? Jews? Wine geeks? Aspirants to the state of being a cheese-eating surrender monkey? There are so many.
 
I would prefer newspapers not try to pretend they are neutral or objective in any fashion. Better the UK system where papers wear their biases on their sleeve and readers can take this into account in forming their opinion on a story, than to claim to be neutral and fail miserably at it. Our legal system is based on the idea that the search for truth is best served by having every side present their case and the facts they deem the most important, and the judge and jury can then consider what's material and credible. I don't see any reason why the same principle shouldn't operate just as effectively in other realms, and indeed all the classic arguments in favor of the utility of free speech from the likes of J.S. Mill seem to be predicated on exactly that. Along similar lines, I think wine journalism is vastly enriched by guys like John Gilman who call them as they see them and make a case for their own views, in contrast to all those critics who give shitty wines high marks because they're trying to be "objective."

P.S. Anyone who thinks the New York Times is objective or neutral in any fashion is as delusional as anyone who thinks the same of Fox News.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg: P.S. Anyone who thinks the New York Times is objective or neutral in any fashion is as delusional as anyone who thinks the same of Fox News.
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I don't think the NY Times is as bad as Fox News.

Or maybe it's just because it's written as opposed to television so they can present the information in slightly more sophisticated and nuanced ways. Whenever I see CNN or Fox News it makes me cringe at how simplistic and buzz-word filled their operations are.

But, I mainly read the Sunday magazine, Dining, and Style sections. The rest is just headlines so it doesn't matter what the NYTimes or anyone else has to say about it.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
I would prefer newspapers not try to pretend they are neutral or objective in any fashion. Better the UK system where papers wear their biases on their sleeve and readers can take this into account in forming their opinion on a story, than to claim to be neutral and fail miserably at it. Our legal system is based on the idea that the search for truth is best served by having every side present their case and the facts they deem the most important, and the judge and jury can then consider what's material and credible. I don't see any reason why the same principle shouldn't operate just as effectively in other realms, and indeed all the classic arguments in favor of the utility of free speech from the likes of J.S. Mill seem to be predicated on exactly that. Along similar lines, I think wine journalism is vastly enriched by guys like John Gilman who call them as they see them and make a case for their own views, in contrast to all those critics who give shitty wines high marks because they're trying to be "objective."

P.S. Anyone who thinks the New York Times is objective or neutral in any fashion is as delusional as anyone who thinks the same of Fox News.
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Anyone who thinks that the news pages of the Times are as biased as Fox is as delusional as anyone who thinks that the news pages of the Wall Street Journal are as biased as CSNBC. There are differences and one can tell. There are protocols and they work.

Mill did believe there was such a thing as accuracy and he did manifestly believe in the protocols to avoid bias (read A System of Logic). His theory of free speech didn't advocate biased speech. It said that the way to get to truth was to let ideas battle it out freely so that the best would win. I'm happy to allow Olbermann and Limbaugh to fulminate. That doesn't mean I think I have to think that what they say is equally enlightening as what Oh, say, J.S. Mill says.
 
I guess I need to say it more explicitly: anyone who thought any form or outlet of media was ever, ever, ever "objective" in the modern hair-shirt mouth-breathing definition of the term that's afflicting the Parker universe of acolytes was either not paying a single bit of attention or incredibly, deeply, pathologically, dangerous-to-society stupid. Possibly both. Probably both. No, unquestionably both. It's not possible. It was never possible. How could an intelligent person think it was possible?

Otherwise, everything Prof. Loesberg and The Right Honorable Blackwood said. There are protocols and methodologies. It's like the "more natural/less natural" wine debate. Follow them and say so, or don't and say so. Either is fine with me. But say so, either way.

I'm sorry. Was that harsh and far too black/white? Remind me not to post after drinking.
 
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