The Death of Local News?

Yesterday’s post was about the future.  Specifically about the media formats that are dying because of technological advancement.  My argument was that there will always be quality material out there and there will be money for those people who are skilled to earn a living at their craft.  But there is one area that I am afraid will be lost to technology and, at least at this time, I do not see a replacement for it.

So what is this one thing that I worry will be truly destroyed by technology?  Local news by actual journalists.  As I see it, there will always be outlets of national and world news that are profitable enough to continue on with real journalists.  Those things will have a bias, but that is okay.  Newspapers and magazines today are biased as are all people.  At least when you read Huffington Post or the Drudge Report you know what you are getting when you read.  As I see it, this as a push.

However for local news I envision a very

hard road.  It is no secret that newspapers are struggling now and many of them are shutting down.  Soon we will be hearing the same stories about network affiliates. When this happens, there will really be no source for local news.

I happen to believe that local news is more significant to my life than national news, and I know that whoever is my mayor will have a greater effect on my life than the president.  So I believe that local news is quite important.  I care what goes on at my city council and I want to know how high school football turns out.

I live in a mid-sized city.  It’s huge compared to my home town but tiny compared to New York or Houston.  In greater Fayetteville NC there are about 300,000 people.  Unless things change seriously, even a city this size will have a difficult time employing reporters with only ad revenues from a website.

As things stand currently, the Fayetteville Observer is a respectable paper and I get headlines via RSS.  I click on ads occasionally because I want them to get the revenues.  But I simply have no interest in having the paper delivered.

Imagine that I was back in my hometown, roughly one tenth the size of Fayetteville.  I would still care about the city council and the mayor, there would be only a few less stories for them to cover.  There would be fewer local schools to follow and fewer crimes to report, but still a similar low-end cost.  (And I don’t think the local paper even offers headlines by RSS now.  )

What are the options I see?

First, an [online] subscription model.  I know this is what the papers plan to do.  It makes sense right?  People paid for the delivered version, they will pay for the online version.  The only problem is that it’s nearly to make people see something that was free as having value.  And as far as I know, except for the Wall-Street Journal, this model seems to have failed for every newspaper that has tried it.

Another option is user contributed local news.  The problem with that is reliability.  My concern is with good local news  I guess there could be a digg-like system for rating stories or authors by veracity, but that seems like a bit of a stretch.

There is my irrational fear of technology.  Feel free to call me stupid in the comments and tell me how you get your local news.

The Future – All the Way to the Year 2000

I listen to a podcast called Fourcast. It is all about the future that always makes me think.  In the most recent episode they predicted the death of network TV and alluded to the impending death of record companies.  Just a few days before listening to that, I read an article by Stephen King in Entertainment Weekly.  In this article he bemoans the death of [music] radio, physical books, good movies, and network TV.  At the end of the article he says that his fear is that the replacements for these things is low-quality and that quality versions of all these things are going to disappear.

I have hard similar arguments over the years, and the purpose of this post is to offer my disagreement.  Last week I asked you to help me make a list of important things you believe are going to die because of technology.  Our list included office equipment which is not really a surprise because tech has always moved office equipment pretty quickly.  Video stores and banks were on the list.  They are also not surprising because the services offered by those buildings can be done cheaper over the internet. (Ultimately, the disks through the mail business is doomed as well.  It will be replaced by streaming movies over the web.)  The list also included  old-style phones and wrist watches.  I doubt if anyone is overly concerned about those things, because we have the technology in place to replace them.

Then there’s this item; last week I read this article about the death of cursive writing.  I personally haven’t written anything other than my signature in cursive since the 9^th grade.  And this is another thing that technology has made needless.  Penmanship doesn’t matter when we type everything.

These things are not that frightening by themselves, but for many people, the cumulative effect of so many changes seems both scary and wrong.  I think this is what scares Stephen King, though he expresses his fear a bit differently.  In his words “right now there are no adequate replacements for the quality that looks to be on the way out.” So let’s consider his fear. Do we need to worry that the quality of the media is going to degrade because there’s no money in the new media options and all the skilled people will do something else?

My answer is a strong NO.

Books aren’t going anywhere.  Quality authors will always be widely read and they will make good money for their craft.  Books made of paper will fade, and the digital copies we all buy will cost less.  Publishing companies may even disappear.  (I believe their death is certain unless they change their archaic and draconian DRM concepts.) If publishing companies disappear what will replace them?  One possibility is that there will be freelance editors to edit for the freelance authors.  The good ones will be in demand and will earn a good living.  The bad ones will find a new job.  The same will be true for authors.  A second possibility is some sort of collective or trade group that carries out these duties but has the authors in mind rather than the bottom line of the publishing companies.  I’m not trying to predict the future, but I will say with certainty that the way things are is not the way things will be. (Do you think Plato would have written the Trial of Socrates if he had to negotiate his advance.)

This watch is bigger than my phone. The future is coming

The same can be said for each of these media formats.  Quality will rise and people who are talented will earn a good living.  In fact, I think I can make the argument that whenever network television dies, the overall quality of that media will rise.  I am completely certain that music isn’t going to disappear, but I’m also certain that musicians will not earn their income in the same way that they do now.

An inability to imagine the future becomes fear of the future.  So much of the hand wringing and fear bears this out.  I do not pretend to know how all these things will be replaced in the future.  But I am certain that my great grandparents couldn’t have imagined what movies or television would become.  (And that they would be appalled at how much we spend each month on entertainment) I am also certain that media isn’t going anywhere.  In fact, as technology makes our work easier we will probably spend even more time consuming media.

One last thought that I didn’t know how to connect.  I believe that the media we consume will be high-quality.  Ask a Ninja, Homestar Runner, and Chad Vader are well-known, funny, widely watched and higher quality than Accidentally on Purpose.

Tomorrow…the one impending change that I cannot envision a replacement for.

Best Web Junk (September 25)

Even though it’s not from this week, this is the funniest lolcat I’ve seen in a while

The Star Wars Soundboard ver. 2

Did you ever wonder what the worst song in the world would sound like?  In my opinion it’s “I Will Always Love You” the Whitney Houston version, but apparently the scientific answer can be found here.

I posted this on Facebook earlier this week and since then I’ve seen at least 10 others post it, but it definitely is the best thing I’ve seen this week.  I present All the Single Babies.  And you know it is one of the best videos of all time

My Prayer for the Southern Baptist Convention

The generation that led us through the conservative resurgence is aging and their influence is fading.  My prayer is that we would not abandon their passion for the inerrancy of the Bible, and that we have learned the lessons they taught.  I pray that the SBC would stand on the shoulders of these men and reach to new heights to see the world changed for Christ.  My prayer is that the new leaders of these entities would be seekers of God’s will more than politicians. And my prayer for my own generation is that we don’t abandon inerrancy because we believe “the battle for the Bible is over” I also pray for my generation of Southern Baptists that we  make an impact on the world that the previous generation could not simply because they were fighting over inerrancy.

That’s it, that is my prayer for the SBC

I probably could have included this in yesterday’s post but it was already very long.

Convention Commentary from an Average Southern Baptist

When I got home yesterday I read that Morris Chapman has announced his resignation as the head of the executive committee.  I was not shocked by this news.  Nor, I expect, was anyone else.  The real news in my mind comes as this story is added to the events of the past few months.  Chapman’s resignation combined with that of  Rankin and the ouster of Hammond means that there are 3 SBC entities with no top leader.

Because of the state of the convention I thought I’d share my thoughts

In many ways I am the average under 35 Southern Baptist minister.  I have been in ministry for 12 years all in small churches.  I am seminary educated.  I have no ambition to ever preach the convention sermon, but I do want to see the Southern Baptist Convention be the best it can be. All I want is to bring glory to God in whatever position He puts me.

I obviously am a blogger, but I don’t have a wide reading.  I probably never will.  Even so, I don’t feel disenfranchised.  In fact I feel very welcome within my convention.  It’s even possible that because I’m one of the 15% of non-grey-hairs at the convention that my voice gets heard a little more.

Now that I have established my averageness as a young Southern Baptist.  I’d like to offer some commentary.

First, I don’t want to dismiss the hand of God in our entities.  As I think about individuals, I don’t want to assume that anything other than the will of God is involved in their decisions.

It seems that the takeaway from looking at the state of our convention is this: change is coming, like it or not.  The fact is, soon we will have different people in charge of both mission boards and the executive committee.

I recall Daniel Akin saying that electing the GCR task force will one day be seen as a watershed event.  At this point that is still a question mark.  The work of that body is yet to be seen. (and you can read my thoughts here) To me it seems that the real beginning of change was the 2006 convention in Greensboro.  That year the convention spoke pretty clearly about its feelings toward the status quo.  I believe that at that point many convention goers were beginning to feel disenfranchised.  The reason it worked out as it did is, I suppose, unfortunate for Ronnie Floyd.  People were feeling that the god-ol-boy network was in full force and their options were not real options.  The vote was less of a vote against Ronnie Floyd as it was a vote for the Cooperative Program.  I believe that the average Southern Baptist (e.g. me) knows that the CP is the tool that has allowed us to become the world’s greatest mission sending organization.  The candidate Ronnie Floyd, with his church’s very low CP giving, demonstrated that maybe the good-ol-boy network had the network in mind rather than what is best for the convention.

I don’t want that to sound overly cynical.  In reality I don’t believe there was some grand conspiracy to control everything in the convention.  But I do believe that people who hold influence trust their own judgment more than the convention at large.  So they simply put forth a candidate and hoped for a rubber stamp.  When that didn’t come in 06, it sent a message.

So what is the takeaway from all this.  There will be new leadership in the NAMB, the IMB, and the executive committee.  (And Rainer has only been at Lifeway about 4 years)  And so, regardless of the recommendations that come from the Great Commission task force, change is coming to our convention.

Tomorrow – My Prayer for the convention

As always, I welcome your thoughts.

Again…I ask for your help

I’m working on a blog post for Wednesday later in the week and I would like your help.  In the comments, add to this list as you feel the need.

Stuff Technology is going to kill in the foreseeable future

• Newspapers
• Local TV
• Books (the dead-tree kind)
• Analog telephones
• Snail Mail
• Bank branches

Keep this list to things you believe are already on the way out.  You may deeply believe that technology will make roads obsolete like in the Jetsons, but that is a very long way off.

Best Web Junk (September 18)

This is by far the scariest story of the week.

These pictures are beautiful and impressive

I nearly fell out of my chair laughing at this.  The hypothesis section is just about the funniest thing ever.  From Fail Blog

Interestingly, most of this stuff has come true.  these commercials are from 1993.

My best blog posts

I’m planning to put up a new tab at the top of my blog a sort of introduction to my blog and what it’s about.  I thought I’d add links to my all-time best posts.

There are a year and a half worth of posts (321) on this blog, so it’s a bit of a daunting task to decide on what are the 10 or 12 best across categories.

Here’s where you come in.  Many of you read my blog regularly and surely there are some posts that you remember well or that you particularly enjoyed.  Please take the time to suggest something in the comments.  It could be a post that you particularly enjoyed, one that made you angry or just one that you thought was good.  Nobody really comments here very much anymore, so I don’t have the feedback I once did.

Here are a few of my nominees

Silent

Has the World Gone Crazy

Stuff to do Before I die

My night in the Emergency Room

Dual Book Review: The God Question & The Reason For God

I recently read The God Question: An Invitation to a  Life of Meaning by J.P. Moreland and The Reason for God: Beilef in an Age of Skepticism by Timothy Keller.  These books do not just have similar titles, they are very similar books.

J.P. Moreland is a professor of Apologetics at the Talbot School of Theology, and strictly speaking is a better apologist than Keller.  Keller however is a Pastor.  He started the Redeemer Presbyterian church in New York City.  As a pastor, his book addresses issues he has seen in the pastorate.

I read a lot books that fall under the rubric of apologetics.  And in truth, all of them have some similarities.  Modern day apologists are still expanding on the work of Aquinas and secularists are still attacking his methods.  He has been dead for 8 centuries, and books still keep coming.  So there is bound to be some overlap.

Both The God Question and The Reason for God are written in a similar fashion.  Both address the reader directly, make wide use of first person and both tackle life’s most basic questions.  Moreland uses the story of his personal journey to Christ.  And Keller answers questions about the Christian faith that have arisen from his years as a pastor in Manhattan.

In the first part of The God Question Moreland addresses the reason why Americans don’t know how to be happy.  He even diagnoses the problem.  We don’t know how to be happy because we have decided to reject the notion of moral right and wrongness.  And addressing the reader directly he transitions into a work of apologetics.  This direct address to the reader as “you” is an approach I have never seen before.  Though Moreland does his best to be gentle, the subject is inherently offensive.  I wonder how effective this approach is to someone who is a committed agnostic. (Is that an oxymoron?)  At any rate It is a novel approach and the book remains interesting.  Moreland ventures into territory rarely addressed by apologetics as well.  He discusses the reality of demons and the importance of prayer and worship.  These topics are usually not found in apologetics books.

In The Reason for God Keller uses the introduction to admit that there are genuine differences in those who are skeptics of God, Christianity, and religion and Christians.  He explains that in his view doubts are not bad because they lead us to seek answers.  If we seek answers we will find the truth; God is real and Christianity is true.  In the first section of the book he addresses a host of doubts that people have expressed to him. Then in the second section he builds the case for Christianity.

I have some disagreements with both authors but nothing that would really temper my recommendation. I am comfortable recommending either book.  But if I was forced to only recommend one, it would be The Reason for God because it is written by a pastor and reflects a pastor’s heart.

Best Web Junk (Sep 11)

I’m not a very good housekeeper, but I’m reasonably sure this is not going to happen at my house

An awesome win

The US Army goes a long way to get recruits

And finally this week, you really can’t go wrong with Ender’s Game humor.

This old dude is amazing with a  slingshot