Mondoweiss [worth accessing every day] has a well-written and reflective piece on writing, the internet and journalism:
"My mother turned 80 and we had a party last night, and I had a conversation with an academic friend about monetizing the internet. She is worried that I won’t be able to support myself as a journalist. (So am I). And she is worried that she won’t be able to read good writing anymore. She gets pleasure from reading good writing.
Like every other journalist, I find these issues fascinating. But one problem in her formulation is the belief that the old system somehow created profit for good writing. It didn’t. Good writing was cleverly bundled within profitable enterprises and thus was subsidized by other parts of the enterprise. When Mark Bowden (he of Black Hawk Down) built up his African storytelling skills years ago by going off for months to write about the rhinoceros for the Philadelphia Inquirer, his salary wasn’t paid by his readers and the advertisers who followed them; no, he was subsidized by more profitable portions of the newspaper. Like the weather story. (When I was in newspapers I was told it was the most popular story in the paper, so work hard at it, kid.) Good writing has always been an elite choice. Maybe that’s what makes it good writing. The problem for traditional journalism is that the internet has unbundled the old relationships, leaving the rhinoceros-writer unsubsidized."
"My mother turned 80 and we had a party last night, and I had a conversation with an academic friend about monetizing the internet. She is worried that I won’t be able to support myself as a journalist. (So am I). And she is worried that she won’t be able to read good writing anymore. She gets pleasure from reading good writing.
Like every other journalist, I find these issues fascinating. But one problem in her formulation is the belief that the old system somehow created profit for good writing. It didn’t. Good writing was cleverly bundled within profitable enterprises and thus was subsidized by other parts of the enterprise. When Mark Bowden (he of Black Hawk Down) built up his African storytelling skills years ago by going off for months to write about the rhinoceros for the Philadelphia Inquirer, his salary wasn’t paid by his readers and the advertisers who followed them; no, he was subsidized by more profitable portions of the newspaper. Like the weather story. (When I was in newspapers I was told it was the most popular story in the paper, so work hard at it, kid.) Good writing has always been an elite choice. Maybe that’s what makes it good writing. The problem for traditional journalism is that the internet has unbundled the old relationships, leaving the rhinoceros-writer unsubsidized."
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