The Writer's Pulse

“How many of you read the newspaper?”

That question was asked at least once at the beginning of each semester back when I was taking journalism classes. Few hands were raised, mine not one of them, and the teacher at the head of the class (himself a journalism vet), was never surprised by the result.

“Where do you get your news, then?” was often the follow-up. Television and the Internet, I’d answer, though I’d occasionally glance at the local paper’s front page headline.

His point in asking these questions was to highlight the fact that good, old-fashioned newspapers aren’t as popular today as they used to be. In fact, recently I’ve been hearing more and more about the death of traditional news media.

Is it true? Do we need a crash cart, stat? Is this really the end?

Clear!

For the February 16, 2009 edition of TIME magazine, Walter Isaacson wrote a pretty convincing article on the dire situation of traditional news media (an article which I read in the actual print version of the magazine, by the way). The basis of the article is this: most people these days don’t see the point in paying for something they can get online for free. Therefore, fewer people are buying the print versions of newspapers and magazines.

Isaacson offers a potential fix for this problem: micropayments. Pay a nickel or a dime for each article, or any particular amount for access to online news.

I know what you’re thinking. Pay for something we’ve gotten free all these years? No way!

But when you really consider it, it’s hardly fair to expect journalists to work for free. Add to that the facts that we’re in a recession, newspaper sales are falling, and advertising revenue alone won’t keep the business afloat, and you’ll eventually see that there aren’t too many options left.

Over at Salon.com, Gary Kamiya envisions an even darker outlook for the future of news in his aptly titled article “The Death of the News,” going so far as to say that the demise of newspapers will also lead to the end of reporting. He argues that, as newspaper publishers close their doors, funding for reporting will vanish and you’ll end up with fewer and fewer primary sources of information. There just won’t be as many feet on the ground to get the news.

Kamiya’s prediction is, as he states himself, “dystopian” in nature, but not necessarily outlandish.

Personally, I can’t give a decent prediction. As much as I hate to admit it, micropayments do seem to be the way of the future. They’ve been a small part of online gaming for years, and are slowly entering into the mainstream. Music downloads have become very popular, as well. It’s not hard to imagine a future in which news is purchased in the same fashion.

It all comes down to what the publishers themselves decide to do, and how the consumers react to those decisions.

Comment like you mean it

Do you read the newspaper? Where do you get the majority of your news? And will you attend your newspaper’s funeral if/when it comes to that?

Hey, media, we’ve been over this: stop blowing things out of proportion.

Chances are you’ve heard about Geoffrey Stanford, the high school junior who pointed out an error in a Kansas writing test. The error was a simple matter of word usage — the word “omission” was mistakenly used in place of the word “emission.”

Stanford has been in the media spotlight ever since.

Now, I get the irony of the situation. The student corrects the teacher. But is something like this really newsworthy? If anything, the media shouldn’t be lauding Stanford as a grammatical genius; they should be questioning the Kansas Department of Education and their ability to edit.

I’m also sure that the majority of people on Earth who have a basic knowledge of the English language understand the difference between “emission” and “omission.” Even then, it’s only a single letter typo away.

Still, it’s not Stanford’s fault the media jumped on this story.

They tend to be desparate in that way, after all.

I’m glad video games are starting to get the respect they deserve.

I mean, sure, some are just mindless button-mashers. And yeah, they can be violent. They get a bad rap, though, and as an avid gamer myself I’m glad to finally see that they’re at least reaching into the same realm of acceptance as movies and literature.

Take the recent Writers Guild of America awards, for example. They awarded Star Wars: Unleashed for best writing in video games in 2008.

The fact that anyone is actually considering the writing of any video game for a legitimate award is a good thing. Many deserve it, and hopefully someday video games will be seen as the artistic medium which I think it is (or can be, depending on the developers).

This is only the second Video Game Writing award that the guild has granted (the first being Dead Head Fred, which in my opinion is a strange choice for best writing of 2007, but I digress). Fallout 3, which is a personal favorite of mine, also made the list of nominees.

When I check my e-mail everyday at Yahoo.com, they’re always throwing some stupid news story at me that I just have to click on.

Go figure.

Anyway, turns out Stephen King doesn’t care too much for “Twilight” author Stephenie Meyer’s writing:

According to Stephen, “Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people… The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good.”

Now, I’ve never read “Twilight,” and I haven’t read a Stephen King novel for a good few years, but them’s fightin’ words.

Oh, and way to throw Rowling into the middle of it, Mr. King.

The only question now is who will maniacally murder who first, and whether or not pig’s blood will be involved in any way.

I can’t wait.