News in the aggregate
From the WSJ's Kevin Delaney:
In six of the past 14 months, Yahoo's news site has drawn more unique visitors than any rival, displacing longtime news leader CNN.com, according to research firm Nielsen/NetRatings. Yahoo has agreements to display or link to content from about 100 news organizations, from USA Today to French news service Agence France Presse. Users can search through about 7,000 additional online news sources that Yahoo catalogs for information. Yahoo's rise comes as some traditional news organizations rethink their online strategies. Some that have offered free content are now considering charging for some items. “Is Yahoo a threat to the business model of traditional news organizations? Yeah,” says Paul Grabowicz, director of the New Media program at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. “But it's not a threat that's going to go away. And if it's not Yahoo, it's somebody else.”
I wish I could give you a link to the WSJ story, but it's only for subscribers. And the only part of the NYT that I can link to with confidence is the front page — everything else may disappear in a couple of weeks, behind archival and subscription bars. (I am exaggerating for emphasis.)
The suggestion I heard tonight is that mainstream newspapers need to show their strengths by breaking (and following up on) great stories that require great reporting and great investments of time and money. We haven't had a Watergate recently. Even 9/11 turned out not to be mainstream media's finest hour.
Would that do it? Would doing a great job on a difficult, sustained story prove the worth of great newspapers? Or have craigslist and grassroots journalism and aggregation services reached people in a way that a single magnificent newspaper cannot?
I love it when the Times arrives in the morning. There's an audible series of thumps — all four apartments on my floor take the Times. I don't know what the future holds; I'd be sorry for that thump to start sounding like nostalgia — like the sound of a calliope, or a church bell, or a train whistle.
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