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The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.

Young at mind

11 comments on Young at mind

Young at mind
: The founder of amNewYork, one of the many free minipapers spreading across the country, tells Time:

“What these kids like is fast, blather free and unbiased,” he says. “Something to give them a good, comprehensive scan of the country in 20 minutes.”

Well, I’d say that’s true not only of “these kids” but of everyone: Who wants to waste time reading the news just because writers and editors like to blather? That’s why Metro and similar papers have succeeded around the world. That’s why the Web has succeeded as a news medium! Just because it’s short, that doesn’t mean it’s young (or dumb); short is efficient.

11 responses to “Young at mind”

  1. michael Avatar
    michael

    There is a bias inherent in the decision to publish such abbreviated news articles. In order to provide a “scan of the country in 20 minutes,” what is left out is critical analysis, equal voice, and so on.
    Not to mention, the selection-bias of what gets covered in the first place, what appears on the front page, and so on.

  2. lougrant Avatar
    lougrant

    The concerns of michael are well placed; however, the news have always been filtered (aka edited) to meet a variety of constraints from page size to brain size (in both sender and receiver).
    Today the “official” news sources offer more opinions about news than news that support opinions while the blogosphere offers fast paced information and opinion unencumbered by protocols and printing schedules. One presents “news” to a sitting audience that is assumed to be disconnected from everyday events while the other merely offers the opportunity to connect and harvest as much as the audience wishes or is capable. This radical democratization of information access has come into conflict with the notion that the public cannot possibly have the skills to digest and assimilitate the “news” unless some savant is there to interpret them in the correct manner.
    This is a bit arrogant and greatly pretentious. It is the same arrogance and pretense that sneers when old ladies from Iowa take a cut rate vacation trip to Europe without the benefit of a guide or previous studies in European Art, Philosophy, and History. The old ladies do Europe with Instamatics, buy trinkets, and take giggle filled tours of places and palaces while the deep issues of culture and politics bounce around them. Then, they all come back with silly souvenirs and anecdotes to make plans for a trip to China or even California after the planting is done next Spring. So it is with the blogosphere.
    The selection bias in inherent in any presentation and the search for equality usually amounts to a circular dialogue with the person in the mirror. Neither Guttenberg nor Ben Franklin pretended to present all the news that fit. They merely printed what they saw fit for their purposes and many other people did the same thing before we had newspapers of record or serious news delivered by talking heads with expensive haircuts at 6PM.
    Freedom is a weird thing, man.

  3. michael Avatar
    michael

    Yes, the news have always been filtered. That’s why its foolish to say these papers are doing something new.
    That’s also why its foolish to say that the Web, and yes, even Blogs, are doing something revolutionary in terms of “news delivery”

  4. AnthonyA Avatar
    AnthonyA

    Short does not equal efficient. The goal of information delivery should not be effociency, but the opposite. It should be deliberative, reflective. It shoud require people to think, to come to their own conclusions. It should present multiple perspectives.
    Is this possible in our capitalist society? Nope…………….

  5. lougrant Avatar
    lougrant

    Dear AnthonyA:
    Of course, capitalist news organizations will NEVER be able to reach the standards of diversity and depth achieved by Pravda and the People’s Daily as well as Liberacion and Granma. We the people really need to push our greedy capitalist news moguls to follow their sterling examples as a minimum level of what could be a wonderful world of news and opinion vehicles that present the real reality of real people in real places.

  6. AnthonyA Avatar
    AnthonyA

    lougrant: your non sequitur response misses the point. all acts of mediation, by definition, limit was is being presented. the brevity of these types of news articles only increases the problem. and news organizations run on a capitalistic model are at an even further risk.

  7. lisa Avatar
    lisa

    “Short is efficient” — I’ll remember that the next time Lileks bleats 3,000 words on how Darlin’ Gnat’s doing…since yesterday, anyway.

  8. Sissy Willis Avatar
    Sissy Willis

    Funk and White’s Elements of Style comes to mind.

  9. Oliver Avatar
    Oliver

    I’m okay with short and efficient, but here in Boston the Metro is just as dumb as the Globe is ponderous.

  10. Bryan C Avatar
    Bryan C

    You don’t have to leave out important facts or slip into stilted telegram talk in order to write efficiently. You just have to write well.
    News reporting doesn’t really need to be reflective and analytical in order to be useful. Just the opposite, actually. That’s what news analysis, feature articles, and editorials are for. Accurately and carefully reporting the facts is challenge enough, as evidenced by the number of journalists who do such a miserable job. There’s no shortage of people with opinions, but reporters have unique access to first-hand information, and I think it’s true that their proper job is to make that information available as efficiently as possible.

  11. meep Avatar
    meep

    I rather doubt anyone is getting all their news from amNewYork. I find it a very useful paper for subway riders — I like their little feature on the subway, and they give me more of the local news that’s pertinent to me than does NYTimes.
    Anyway, it’s a quick read, it’s free, and someone hands it to you in the station. It won’t replace my Wall Street Journal, but it does give me some useful info I don’t get elsewhere. And it’s easy to read on the subway, unlike the WSJ or NYTimes.