Reading the cliff notes version of Dante’s Inferno seemed like a good idea in high school. Cliff notes gave us the names of all the characters, the general plot and the different levels of hell. Yet, I never passed the tests because I always missed the important questions; the ones that dealt with character, style and personal perspective. I missed out on the true experience of hell.
Damn that Micheal Wolff –trying to invent Cliffs Notes “2.0,” the digital version.
If you hate reading developed stories from stylistic authors–then Newser.com is your new best friend.
But if you are like most news readers, then you’re probably annoyed with Wolff’s naïve comments on the uselessness of long-winded sources like the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. His laborers and content editors will slave away at summarizing the main points of stories so that you don’t have to read the articles; you get an aggregate and some bare bones.
Aggregates like WindyCitizen.com make sense, because they are hyper local and reaching into specific niches and resources that get lost amidst the big ocean of information. But Newser.com seems overly ambitious.
And the obvious question to me is, WHY? The concept of print media dying out because of our involvement with the web is acceptable and inevitable. But why do we need to get rid of writers, researchers and the resources that make the entire art of journalism worth while?
As CNBC’s guest, Wolff claimed that it will be the aggregates’ jobs to determine what is worth while and useful. I thought the whole craze was about putting the power back in the hands of the people and pushing forth citizen journalism. Wolff is right, we are taking the power out of big names like the Wall Street Journal– and handing it over to the soon-to-be-power-house aggregates instead. THEY will determine what is worth while?
In a story taken from a UK wire about monkeys reacting to music, Newser.com demonstrates the method used to summarize, with a synopsis and a tag line written by a Newser.com “writer.” The author, in this case Rob Quinn, get accredited for reading the story and writing a simple summary for us. His style: lazy.
The only accurate statement Wolff made in the entire interview was that advertising is moving away from traditional broadcast and gravitating mostly towards the web. So yes, print and TV better watch out on losing money. All that will happen is that we will be inundated with ads on every click.
Dante’s Inferno will always be by Dante–not the publishing company that put out the cliffs notes version. And just like that, Newser.com will never be the future of journalism.
