The official Old Media party line, among the few remaining true luddites not yet laid off by their newspaper employers, is that New Media is a cesspool of misinformation while print is a rock of traditional credibility.
But the progress of the crackpot story about China drilling for oil off the coast of Cuba -- repeated by no less than Vice President Dick Cheney -- should knock a few holes in that argument.
For more than a decade there's been a deep division in newspaper journalism between the "onliners" and the .. well, let's face it, we all called them Luddites. Dinosaurs. People who just don't get it.
But times change.
All across the country there are efforts to move online publishing responsibility and authority into the core news organization.
It is a move fraught with peril. I've previously warned of the many ways that this can go wrong. But I have become convinced of the following:
Now that Vin Crosbie's year of teaching at Syracuse is drawing to a close, he's talking about what he found in about a quarter of the faculty:
"They're obstructionists because they either deny things are changing (for example, one still thinks the Internet is a fad that will disappear) or they've grown too comfortable teaching the same curricula year after year for 20 or more years. They are tenured and so can't be fired, and the doctrine of academic freedom allows them to teach whatever they see fit."
We're restarting our search at Morris DigitalWorks for a director of audience growth. This is a senior management position with significant responsibility. It involves working with all levels of leadership at the 13 daily Morris Publishing Group newspapers from Florida to Alaska, and some travel is required.
Earlier today I and a lot of other folks got an email from Vikki Porter, who's leading a Knight Digital Media Center conference for editorial page editors. "We are urging them to build credibility with their users by having the courage to send users elsewhere for info when they can't meet the need. As expected they are appalled. They want hard data to take home to convince their legacy managers this is a good idea."
A new report from polling firm Zogby International has troubling signals for conventional media of all types:
70% of Americans think journalism is important to the quality of life in their communities.
67% think traditional journalism is out of touch with what Americans want from their news.
32% said Internet sites are their most trusted source for news and information.
22% said newspapers are the most trusted.
21% said television is the most trusted.
15% said radio is the most trusted.
The grumbling by some Associated Press members has "gone public" and is nicely summarized by Forbes writer Louis Hau, who asks: "Do newspapers still need The Associated Press?
