Just a brief reminder that the community-driven town hall discussion “No News is Bad News: Seattle As a No-Newspaper Town?” is happening tonight at 7:00 PM in the Bertha Landes Room at Seattle’s City Hall.
What it is: A free, community discussion to discuss the future of journalism and news media in the Seattle area.
What it isn’t: A “save the newspapers” effort.
“No News is Bad News” is an informal organization formed by Seattle-area bloggers. Tonight’s event is free, but registration is required.
The event will be moderated by KIRO’s Dave Ross. Panelists include NYU professor Jay Rosen, P-I columnist Art Thiel, UW professor Kathy Gill, and Seattle Times online Director of Content Cory Haik.
For more information or to submit a question for the panel, visit the No News is Bad News website.
Update: If you missed the event, you can view a video archive of the event on Ustream or feel free to check out the notes I took with my fancy new LiveScribe Pulse pen, which are indexed to an audio recording of the event. Just click on any of the green text to hear what was being said at the time I wrote it.
singliac » Feb 26, 2009 at 12:45 pm
I read “…tonight at 7:00 PM in the Bertha Ladies Room…” It struck me as an odd venue for the meeting.
Vellebue Renter » Feb 26, 2009 at 1:25 pm
The Newspapers will be the NEXT Big Bailout. Its coming within the next 12 months my friends.
Something also dawned on me today. Whatever happened to the Cedar/Cascade County movement? As long as this State and King Co. do EVERYTHING in their power to keep housing prices as high as they can, they can keep collecting higher revenue in property taxes.
TJ_98370 » Feb 26, 2009 at 3:19 pm
By Vellebue Renter @ 2:
It’s already happening.
…..Philadelphia Media Holdings is in default on its loans, having missed debt payments going back to June. With no buyers knocking on the door, the Philadelphia Bulletin has reported, owner Brian Tierney went hat-in-hand to the Governor’s office to talk about giving the paper some public help……
The link below is to a good Wall Street Journal article on why the government bailing out a newspaper is a really bad idea.
Bad News in Philadelphia
…….newspapers aren’t the lifeblood of anything if they are merely an adjunct of the state. Independent journalism is valuable, but only if it is truly independent. A newspaper that is bankrolled by the state, even if it’s only a loan, is going to have a strong interest in not criticizing the state…….
.
mark » Feb 26, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Survivor and American Idol are on tonight. We need to get our priorities in order.
Kary L. Krismer » Feb 26, 2009 at 7:06 pm
By Vellebue Renter @ 2:
Any increase or decrease in the total tax assessment for all the properties in any revenue district would be revenue neutral. The tax rate is determined after determining the value of all the properties. I believe total revenues are capped at a 1% increase, exclusive of other assessments like school levies.
Where the state is really losing money is on the real estate excise tax on transfers, and that’s mainly due to the volume changes. On King County SFR sales, for example, the state is only collecting about 20% of the taxes that they were during the peak.
crispy&cole » Feb 26, 2009 at 10:36 pm
MOre pain for Seattle…Expedia layoffs:
http://miniexpedia.blogspot.com/
Angry White Guy » Feb 27, 2009 at 7:37 am
“Underwriting standards have changed from lax to too tight,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the Chicago-based National Association of Realtors. “The pendulum is swinging too far the other way. We can’t stabilize the housing market if buyers can’t get reasonable mortgages.”
No. Actually, the problem is house prices are too high.
Besides, what does the NAR, and their pimp daddys and hoes really care? They get a cut regardless…prices up, down, sideways…shuffle p-work, “negotiate”, chase down the money, get a cut.
Makes a fella angry just thinking about it.
dls » Feb 27, 2009 at 7:46 am
As somebody who does not live in the PRS proper, I don’t see how it would be a major ‘loss’ if either the Seattle-PI or Seattle Times went out of business. There will still be the Everett Herald, and down south, the Tacoma News Tribune. If neither the PI or Times can figure out simple business stuff (cater to what your readers want, not what you consider to be politically correct and ‘proper’). The Herald and TNT also operate in the ‘bluest-of-blue’ Puget Sound metro area, but they are not squawking about going out of business.
I’ll miss Bill Virgin’s business column in the PI, but that is about it. And yes, I am willing to subscribe to a paper that proves it is worth the bux, my $99/yr. online subscription to the Wall Street Journal proves that (and I would subscribe to the Herald if the price was reasonable).
The PI and Times dug their own politically correct graves, no tears from me.
Kary L. Krismer » Feb 27, 2009 at 7:47 am
RE: Angry White Guy @ 7 – I would really disagree with Yun on that quote. First, I don’t think the current standards are too tight. Except for sub-prime things have not changed all that much. Just lower limits mainly, which is a good thing. The old limits were so high fairly standard advice was to not borrow all that you qualified for.
Second, what I’ve been saying is that the mortgages haven’t changed enough since August 2007. Using credit scores is a horrible system on which to judge the creditworthiness of someone for a mortgage. It’s a system designed to let lenders know whether it’s okay to offer a credit card or car loan to someone with $40,000 of credit card debt. Usually the answer to that question is yes, where for a mortgage loan the answer to that question should be no. Then there’s also the whole appraisal situation.
Anyway, what we have is a bunch of mortgages written since August 2007 that seemingly are no more attractive to third party investors than the ones written before. We should have done more, not less.
Ira sacharoff » Feb 27, 2009 at 8:40 am
Kary said “Using credit scores is a horrible system on which to judge the creditworthiness of someone for a mortgage. ”
I agree, but what’s the alternative?
Kary L. Krismer » Feb 27, 2009 at 9:04 am
You could have another rating system. I’m not trying to say that you have to go to a manual underwriting system.
The current credit score system is basically something that tells a bank whether they’re likely to make money off of someone on a credit card or car loan. Thus, for example, if the person doesn’t keep credit cards open for a long time, their score is reduced even if their debt and payments don’t change. Or if someone gets a new car loan for less than they owed on the prior car, again their score drops.
For a mortgage based system you’d knock about 200 points off for carrying over $10,000 on credit cards. For the current system, that is a good thing, as long as their credit limit is 2x the amount carried on any one card.
Justin » Feb 27, 2009 at 10:46 am
While losing the PI will be a minor loss, Seattle still has not one but TWO newspapers with more journalistic integrity and more relevant news than the Times: The Stranger and the Seattle Weekly. I certainly won’t complain if the vile propaganda the Times and PI print against transit, for sports, and in the pocket of real estate goes away.
The Tim » Feb 27, 2009 at 10:57 am
The most amusing part of last night’s event (in my opinion) was near the end, when the question was asked:
I would have stood up and commented on that laughable remark, but there was only about 10 minutes left in the event, and most of the night had been a little too combative already without me :^)
To hear that question and Jay Rosen’s excellent response, click the “Q” on the line that says “Q. Who safeguards journo. ethics?” near the bottom of page 3 in my notes.
Lake Hills Renter » Feb 27, 2009 at 11:09 am
The thing I always wonder about with the demise of newspapers are things like school boards (as an example). Even though no one reads the school board minutes int the papers, the school board members know they are being watched by the media, and thus keep their most egregious dictatorial desires in check for the most part — i.e, the newspapers are a watchdog. With the papers gone, there is no watchdog. The local TV news only seems to cover them when there’s a “story” there, so they are now free to do whatever they want as long as they stay under the radar. That’s potentially a Bad Thing.
But then, that’s the way it was in small town Texas 20+ years ago. I have no idea if such things are even still reported as, well… I don’t read newspapers.
Disclaimer: I come from a family that used to be in the newspaper business.
The Tim » Feb 27, 2009 at 11:50 am
RE: Lake Hills Renter @ 14 – West Seattle Blog sends people to pretty much every meeting, event, or other similar things in West Seattle, and reports on them (IMO) better than the paper. I don’t think the watchdog will disappear, it will just shift.
Scotsman » Feb 27, 2009 at 11:56 am
RE: The Tim @ 13 –
Oh man, that was an opportunity wasted. How anyone can even ask that in light of the recent examples of print media bias and error rates is astounding, not just here in Seattle, but in all major media markets.
One strategy for print media survival would be to stress complete objectivity and high levels of reliability in all of their reporting, perhaps going so far as to drop any and all editorial efforts. With an earned reputation for completeness and factual reliability, in essence not much more than documentation, they could find a voice. But in a society that has dumbed down and needs interpretation (editorializing) and perhaps some sensationalism to maintain interest, the chance of that happening appears remote.
Kary L. Krismer » Feb 27, 2009 at 2:17 pm
By Scotsman @ 16:
I’d agree the chance of that happening is very remote. Look at 60 Minutes and the other TV news magazine shows. No integrity at all.
Or more locally, maybe 10 years ago the director of KOMO news decided to not report on the cause of any entity disrupting I-5 traffic, but instead to only report that traffic was being disrupted. The idea was to not let the station become a tool of the protesters. The “reporters” for the station were very unhappy about that, and eventually forced the guy out. Again, no integrity at all.
explorer » Feb 27, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Um, don’t take it personally The Tim, but an inexpensive digital voice recorder run through a transcribing app and a few minutes of editing would have worked better. That would have likely been cheaper than what you used too.
A lot of your notes are illegable. The bandwidth requried to reproduce handwritten notes is wasted and seems very high. Lots of eye candy, in that tool, that is really too simple to justify the bandwith. Thanks for a least previewing it…
mark » Feb 27, 2009 at 2:41 pm
RE: The Tim @ 15 –
Blogs have their strengths and weaknesses.
Reading comments a few threads down where an influential local real estate agents personal problems were pointed out is a good example. The owner of this site heavily edited the message. True, it wasn’t hard to figure out who was being discussed if the reader had enough background info.
This site has held many professional real estate industry types feet to the fire. To give this influential blogger any slack smells of censorship. I do realise that the owner of this site has a somewhat symbiotic relationship with the influential blogger and her web site which will tend to put pressure on the owner of this site.
The influential real estate professional/blogger has also stated that she will remove any comments that she doesn’t like. I don’t read that site very much because of that statement.
Bloggers succumb to the same pressurers that the newspaper industry does. Hard choices need to be made.
The Tim » Feb 27, 2009 at 2:41 pm
RE: explorer @ 18 – Well, the main point of the pen isn’t really for sharing notes like this, I just thought I’d throw them up there for kicks. I think the main benefit to the Pulse pen is for referring back to your own notes at a later time. The PC app actually has a bunch of other features geared toward this usage, including the ability to search your notes by word, which works surprisingly well despite my horrible handwriting.
Also, most of the bandwidth in this application is from the sound recording, which I had set to the highest quality, just to see the size of the output file. I just got the pen a couple days ago, so I’m still playing around with the right mix of settings.
The Tim » Feb 27, 2009 at 2:43 pm
By mark @ 19:
For the record, I didn’t edit that comment. What you see is how it was posted by mike2. When I edit a comment, I say so. And 99% of the time I only edit other people’s comments to clean up links. The other 1% is reserved for people that are being outright hostile jerks.
I obviously don’t have any problems discussing things that are public record, and have in fact discussed her foreclosure by name in the forums myself. My only problem with the comment (and its replies) was that it was off-topic, which is why I requested the discussion be moved to the forum.
deejayoh » Feb 27, 2009 at 3:47 pm
I don’t really think of the comments as part of the “content” on a blog. They’re mostly opinions and assertions and need to be taken with a grain of salt. I hold the blogger to a higher standard than commenters.
FWIW at least the discourse on this blog is relatively intelligent. Whenever I try reading the comments over at the PI or Times, I feel like I lose IQ points with every one I read…
Scotsman » Feb 27, 2009 at 4:33 pm
RE: deejayoh @ 22 – You make a great point about the blogger being the majority of the content, and the comments supplementary. But it’s the comments, and the speed with which they can be put up, fact checked, etc by other participants that allow one to judge the quality of the original blog. It’s very different from a news paper’s “corrections” that may or may not make subsequent editions. I’m much more likely to believe something on a blog with 50 or 60 comments than I am a random news article. While I may not know the whole truth after reading the blog/comments, at least I’ll leave with some idea of where the potential issues and pitfalls are, and can take it from there on my own. The ability to quickly attract/deploy a diversity of opinion is a huge positive.
deejayoh » Feb 27, 2009 at 4:48 pm
RE: Scotsman @ 23 – well, I’m taking that with a grain of salt ;^)
good point, when the comments clarify, correct, and challenge it is a better system than the “tell only”
Plus when you read a blog, you generally know something about the qualifications of the writer w/r/t the topic based on past writings and/or credentials
Newspapers – notsomuch.
mark » Feb 27, 2009 at 6:35 pm
RE: The Tim @ 21 –
It appeared to me that the comments had been edited.
Since that was not the case I offer my sincerest appologies to you Tim.
You do a very good job of presenting your data in an unbiased manner.
You come across as real gentleman. Keep up the good work.
vermillionsky » Feb 27, 2009 at 6:54 pm
RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 11 –
I think you make a really good point. I shouldn’t be penalized on my credit score if I choose to close a credit card account or pay cash for a car instead of taking out a loan. Also, there should be some way for renters to be acknowledged for paying their rent on-time.
Ira sacharoff » Feb 27, 2009 at 7:11 pm
I know, I know, I’m an old curmudgeon. But there’s nothing quite as satisfying as folding the newspaper and doing the crossword puzzle . I’ve done online puzzles, but it just ain’t the same.
Rhonda Porter » Feb 27, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Ira, I agree with you and I’m afraid it’s a sign of our times that fewer and fewer of us read newspapers. i have to admit, I’m getting a lot of my news from Twitter…even the newspapers are feeding their stories there.
The Tim » Feb 27, 2009 at 10:24 pm
RE: mark @ 25 – No problem, I can see how it could be confusing. The square brackets are a common thing to use when editing something after the fact.