“Network News at a Crossroad”
The article talks about how two news stations, ABC and CBS, are in danger of losing many of their news time slots. Since news is readily available online, not many people are tuning into the evening news shows. To combat the revenue they are losing, the companies have asked many of their employers to leave the job. If the situation becomes any worse, people are speculating that ABC and CBS will have to negotiate an alliance with CNN in order to stay aloft. It is likely that CBS will form a partnership with CNN since many of CNN anchors contribute to 60 Minutes. A good point that the article make is comparing the failing news stations to how newspapers suffered when radio and television news broadcasts came out. The article also speculates that future journalists will have to do more than just interview people. Hey will have to learn how to wield cameras, fix lights, and come up with their own interview questions. After reading that sentence, it is evident that the main people who are in danger are people with small jobs (people who are not on-air). Mr. Westin is right about not having to recreate a new image for the news network, but instead make it cheap to manage. One idea that was thrown around was to cut journalists from doing weather reports since local news station covers that. A good question to consider is if CBS and ABC are taken over by CNN, will they change the way they approach news stories. Currently, not many people trust CNN due to their biased views on certain issues and ABC and CBS are a few of the only news stations that offer a non-biased view.
“Rally to Shift the Blame”
The part of this article that really stood out was how it played off the failing television views from the “News Networks at a Crossroad” article. Even in this article, it was mentioned that not many people are watching news broadcasts anymore. However, the author of the article states it is not because of the news being online but rather viewers being afraid of the situations in their lives. The tone and point of this article was to criticize how John Stewart, and Stephan Colbert, shifted the blame of the failing government onto how the media portrays it. The last sentence of the article, “His barrage against the news media Saturday stemmed from the fact that, on this day, attacking the message would have been bad manners, so he stuck with the messengers (Carr, 2010)” shows how Stewart went after the messengers when instead it was a good time to go after the people who created the messages. It is true that the media does misconstrue stories to fit their agenda, and it was right for Stewart to call them out on it. However, with so many people following him why did he not attack the people who create most of the issues that are being reported on?
“A Conglomerate’s Tack to Quash a Parody Site”
Although the article talks about how Koch Industries fell victim to a parody site, the point of this article was to say how Koch tried to violate the First Amendment to find the people who set up the fake email. The company was willing to go through private internet data in order to find the culprits over a harmless prank. If they were to succeed with that lawsuit, it would have opened the doors to many other companies and people doing the same thing. It would have been understanding if the email using libel and defamation on the company, but instead the fake email stated that it would support climate change. The way the company handled the situation only painted them as bullies who would go after anything bad said about them. Is protecting their image of being a climate change denier so important that they would spend millions of dollars on a lawsuit over a parody email? In the end, the person who created the fake email was right. Due to the event, BP got more publicity and went that more sales with their gas.
“Times’s Online Pay Model Was Years in the Making”
This article makes a point about how to survive due to falling revenue. Just like with CBS and ABC new stations, The New York Times had to find a way to keep people visiting their websites and make money off of it. As it stands, it is one of the most viewed news websites with popular and groundbreaking stories. If these stories were to be behind a paywall, it would not be the giant it is today. It was even stated that when TimeSelect paywall ended that the people going it the website doubled. Many news stations should use what the New York Times did as an example to save to falling viewer ship: make articles online free. There have been many instances of people browsing for news articles and being denied the information due to having to pay to read the information. This brings up another issue that is somewhat relevant: online newspapers requiring people to sign up with their social media accounts to view the article. It seems as though many news stations, television and online, are falling so would it be safe to assume that companies in the future will try to have a paywall to increase their revenues?
“Facebook Wins Relatively Few Friends in Japan”
The reason why Facebook is not growing as well as Zuckerberg hoped is that Japanese ultra is different from American culture. As stated in the article, Japanese people prefer privacy so having their real names on their profile is a big turn away for them. Also, Facebook has to contend with three other social media websites that have been around longer and offer more than status updates. Therefore, why would they join a social media website where one of its main functions is picture sharing when they can do the same and more while staying anonymous? One part of the article that stood out was when the author mentioned how Japanese people were worried about their privacy. In the United States, when most people think of their privacy they think of their pictures and statuses being seen by non-friends. However in Japan, people are worrying about being identified on the streets due to their real name (and possibly picture) being online. It is a valid concern since many people do not want to be recognized on the street by some random person who happened to come across their profile. If Facebook wants to become popular in Japan and win against its competitions, then it needs to take into account the culture surrounding online social media websites that are the norm in Japan.
“Tuned Out”
The article goes into in-depth detail on how people are not watching television news anymore. This article offers insight on why CBS and ABC news stations are currently failing. One part that stood out on why people are not watching news, local and worldwide, is that many stories focuses on the negative things that are happening. There are positive news stories about people helping someone, but the majority of it (especially local news) focuses on crimes that have happened and city politics. Another good point that the article makes it that people who do watch the news do so to keep up with celebrities which is more entertainment and tabloids than news. Another issue with watching television news broadcasts is that news has become readily available on the internet and continually growing. The New York Times realized this when they were having problems with keeping subscribers and used the internet to their advantage. With so many news station losing viewers, the question is whether in the far further the internet will be the primary source for world news? It has already amassed more news followers since young people are more likely to check it than watching and waiting for the local evening news report.
Works Cited:
Carr, David. "Rally to Shift the Blame." The New York Times. The New York Times, 31 Oct. 2010. Web. 12 Mar. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/01/business/media/01carr.html>.
Cohen, Noam. "A Conglomerate’s Tack to Quash a Parody Site." The New York Times. The New York Times, 13 Feb. 2011. Web. 12 Mar. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/business/media/14link.html?_r=0>.
Peters, Jeremy W. "Times’s Online Pay Model Was Years in the Making." The New York Times. The New York Times, 20 Mar. 2011. Web. 12 Mar. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/business/media/21times.html>.
Stelter, Brian, and Bill Carter. "Network News at a Crossroads." The New York Times. The New York Times, 28 Feb. 2010. Web. 12 Mar. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/business/media/01network.html?_r=0>.
Tabuchi, Hiroko. "Facebook Wins Relatively Few Friends in Japan." The New York Times. The New York Times, 09 Jan. 2011. Web. 12 Mar. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/technology/10facebook.html>.
