All posts by Tom James

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Investigative journalism 2.0

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newspaper_journalismSelf-described new media whore Paul Carr has an interesting take on the future of investigative journalism and publishing – the problem:

Talk to a random sample of journalists and they’ll tell you the same thing – no one commissions investigative journalism any more.

Talk to any editor and they’ll tell you why; it costs a fortune to produce and rarely adds anything in terms of circulation or bottom line.

In an era of plummeting circulation and competition from free online news sources, as far as a cost-benefits analysis of newspaper investigations goes, it’s all cost and no benefit.

Basically another example of the problem of monetizing content that costs a lot to produce but little to reproduce. After dismissing one Web 2.0 business that attempts to address the problems of investigative journalism called Spot Us Mr Carr proffers his own solution:

I’d kill it. Take it out to the shed and put a bullet through its brain. Its been sick since the mid-80s and watching it try to struggle for twenty more years is embarrassing at best and cruel at worst.

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Walk in to any bookshop and go to the politics, culture, biography or current affairs section. Now tell me investigative reporting is dead.

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Of course these are the big stories – what of the smaller, more immediate ones? TV news. It’s there first, it has money and access and it has a 24 hour cycle to fill, meaning that every lead gets followed and reported no matter how apparently inconsequential.

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Online news sources have their part to play too, although, frankly, they can be divided into two camps – brand extension for established media companies or total horseshit. Blogs have a role – but it’s confined to fact checking and uninformed gadflyery.

This gadfly likes Carr’s idea of idea of a cheap, subscription book-service, slightly more in-depth than a typical article in The Economist but less heavy than (for example) the 464 pages of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army and you would also get a tighter, more focused, and original piece of reporting:

I’d approach an established publishing house with a business plan – a new imprint that publishes short (40,000 words maybe), low cover price (£4.99 tops) books, each written by a recognised investigative reporter and each dealing with a single investigative subject.

Also recommended is Paul Carr’s recently published book Bringing Nothing to the Party: True Confessions of a New Media Whore. It combines hilarious gonzo journalism with genuine insight from Paul Carr’s experience as a wannabe Web 2.0 entrepreneur.

[story from Paul Carr’s blog][image from dsearls on flickr]

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Cybercrime isn’t all that bad…

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…or at least as bowel-voidingly terrifying as people might think.

Prof David S. Wall from the University of Leeds has published a paper – Cybercrime and the Culture of Fear: Social science fiction(s) and the production of knowledge about cybercrime – which has been profiled on IO9 that claims that:

Cyberpunk effectively defined cybercrime as a harmful activity that takes place in virtual environments and made the ‘hi-tech low-life’ hacker narrative a norm in the entertainment industry. It is interesting to note at this point, that whilst social theorists were adopting the Barlovian model of cyberspace, it was the Gibsonian model that shaped the public imagination through the visual media.

Of “the Barlovian model of cyberspace,” to save you the trouble of Googling, after the IO9 article there is an extract from a lecture on Media and Cyberculture, which says that Barlovian refers to John Perry Barlow, the Grateful Dead lyricist, and one of the founders of the EFF. He declares in A Declaration on the Independence of Cyberspace :

“We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth, We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence of conformity. In our world, whatever human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts. We will create a civilization of the Mind in cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before”

Which is interesting, to say the least. Check out Professor Wall’s paper in full here (I doubt I could write a better profile than the one at IO9).

And if that was not enough, you too can immerse yourself in the reality of being a successful cyberpunk novelist and Zeitgeist-definer by listening to William Gibson’s playlist.

[story via Beyond the Beyond, William Gibson’s playlist via Boing Boing]

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Print-a-house

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substrate_printDevotees of rapid prototyping technologies like the RepRap Project will be pleased to hear that construction equipment manufacturer Caterpillar is funding research into scaling the technology up so that it can be used to produce concrete structures:

Behrokh Khoshnevis, a professor in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, says the system is a scale-up of the rapid prototyping machines now widely used in industry to “print out” three-dimensional objects designed with CAD/CAM software, usually by building up successive layers of plastic.

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Instead of plastic, Contour Crafting will use concrete,” said Khoshnevis.

I suppose that rapid prototyping technologies are going to be a change of web/Internet/genetic engineering proportions over the next couple of decades, affecting everything and leading to unpredictable social changes.

[story on Physorg][image from jared on flickr]

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Future talk: how will we speak in the future?

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talkingAn interesting look at the changes in language over time – and a science-fictional look at what languages of the future might be like in 1000 years time:

… some factors do show long-term directional influences.  An obvious one is ease of use: people won’t bother saying “omnibus” when “bus” will do, or “environment” when their friends are getting away with “emviromment”.

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Children forming their initial mental model of how English works don’t want to believe it’s a mess of random idioms; any regularities they notice (like “past tenses end in -ED”) are extended by analogy as far as their peers will let them (“bended”).  All these consistent “trends” in language change make prediction more feasible, or at any rate, less obviously hopeless.

A slightly different comment on language-change is provided by Erin McKean in the Boston Globe, pointing out that there is nothing wrong with changing the English language if you can get your point across clearly (I tend to be pedantic about word-use – a tendency I’m trying to remove):

Part of the joy and pleasure of English is its boundless creativity: I can describe a new machine as bicyclish, I can say that I’m vitamining myself to stave off a cold, I can complain that someone is the smilingest person I’ve ever seen, and I can decide, out of the blue, that fetch is now the word I want to use to mean “cool.” By the same token, readers and listeners can decide to adopt or ignore any of these uses or forms.

[both links via Boing Boing][image from katiebate on flickr]

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Every day, in every way, things get better and better

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stuffIt is nice when someone points out the obvious fact that for most people, most stuff (i.e. consumer durables) is pretty good nowadays – at least compared with equivalent stuff from a long time ago. Whole Earth Catalog creator Stewart Brand discusses this is the 2008 World Question “What have I changed my mind about?” – he now believes that good old stuff sucks:

Well, I bought a sequence of wooden sailboats. Their gaff rigs couldn’t sail to windward. Their leaky wood hulls and decks were a maintenance nightmare. I learned that the fiberglass hulls we’d all sneered at were superior in every way to wood.

Remodeling an old farmhouse two years ago and replacing its sash windows, I discovered the current state of window technology. A standard Andersen window, factory-made exactly to the dimensions you want, has superb insulation qualities; superb hinges, crank, and lock; a flick-in, flick-out screen; and it looks great. The same goes for the new kinds of doors, kitchen cabinetry, and even furniture feet that are available — all drastically improved.

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(New stuff is mostly crap too, of course. But the best new stuff is invariably better than the best old stuff.)

[via the Sachs Report][image from poagao on flickr]