Ross Douthat has a long, mildly worded anti-tech rant in today’s New York Times that I enjoyed, even if I didn’t take it too seriously. A lot of it read like Douthat’s Greatest Hits, hastily written and not especially well thought-through.
But I do want to offer a brief comment on this, plucked from his long list of ways in which the real is better than the virtual: “Online sources of local news are generally lousy compared with the vanished ecosystem of print newspapers.”
Like I said, the whole thing read like he wasn’t putting a lot of thought into it. But we all know that the digital local news outlets that have sprouted in recent years are often better and more comprehensive than the chain-owned ghost newspapers they replaced.
Many of them are nonprofit. Some also have print editions; most don’t. But the idea that a community news website is “lousy” compared to a corporate print product filled with so-called news from anywhere except the community it purports to cover is laughable.
If Douthat would like to go back, say, two or three generations, to a time when many communities had locally owned newspapers with full-time staff members and their own printing press, well, yes. But like I said, he’s produced a once-over-lightly for a day when few people will be spending much time with the Sunday paper.
Happy Easter, everyone!
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I really do not understand why the Times keeps Douthat on the payroll — not because he is conservative (although his conservatism is frequently a Newt-Gingrich-on-acid version), but because he is *lazy*.
That’s a pretty convoluted NYT essay. Anyway, while the digital startups journalistically — as judged by journalists — would win more press association awards, I still wonder if they are taken as seriously by people on the ground vs. the typical pulp-first product with Snoopy, crosswords, etc.