This is the personal website of John Watson: father, software developer, artist, guitar player. Follow me on Mastodon or Twitter or Twitch or itch.io or GitHub.

I'm thinking The LA Times may not quite understand this whole "intertubes" thing

The LA Times ran an unusual editorial yesterday. Here’s the first sentence:


Many publishers consider the Internet, and Google in particular, a greater threat to their livelihoods than Osama bin Laden. -- It's not journalism - Los Angeles Times


A greater threat than Osama bin Laden. But in the very next paragraph it says that Google News, without running any ads themselves, links to stories that "prompt people to spend more time on the news media's sites, potentially increasing their ad sales." That's worse than killing thousands of people? Am I missing something?

The editorial goes on but to me it just sounds like the Times is whining. They’re afraid they’re going to be held to a higher standard now and will have to work harder because Google has just made it easier for people to call them on their bullshit.

Here’s a point by point rebuttal by Robert Niles of the USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review.

Comments

  1. Charles on 2007-08-18 14:19:55 wrote: Wait! Since when is bin Laden a threat to news media livelihood?

  2. Thomas on 2007-08-19 12:15:46 wrote: Haven’t major media outlets been bitching along these lines for the last decade and a half or so? Is this really news?