Pressthink: All Regimes are Founded on Opinion

Jay Rosen has a very useful post over at PressThink:

He says, “As a pastor I have a very real sense of the importance of local dailies and even crappy ol’ free weeklies to build community, or foment division if that’s what clarity brings. Some regular platform for cueing the 20 percent of any town, village, or city that actually get things done as to what needs doing, or stopping, is incredibly important. I can’t figure out what that would look like in Midwestern communities without a newspaper, but I’m afraid that folks who are concerned about big-C Community had better start imagining, fast.”

Murdoch: The End of Newspapers as We Know Them

The Economist:

?I BELIEVE too many of us editors and reporters are out of touch with our readers, ?Rupert Murdoch, the boss of News Corporation, one of the world’s largest media companies, told the American Society of Newspaper Editors last week. No wonder that people, and in particular the young, are ditching their newspapers. Today’s teens, twenty- and thirty-somethings ?don’t want to rely on a god-like figure from above to tell them what’s important,? Mr Murdoch said, ?and they certainly don’t want news presented as gospel.? And yet, he went on, ?as an industry, many of us have been remarkably, unaccountably, complacent.?

Download Murdoch’s speech for free from audible.com