The Seattle Courant is Seattle's first online daily newspaper. While looking for interesting cartoons on the demise of journalism, I came across this cartoon, which they recently published. Through the cartoon I discovered the rest of the publication. I found that The Courant is a hyper-local publication focussing specifically on Seattle. It is an interesting mix of short story features, local news and cultural writing and reviews. Very Seattle. Despite the fact that the top story this weekend is about whether Sascquatches exist, the publication offers an array of information most Seattlites or those linked to Seattle in some way, may find interesting. Clicking around the site, I discovered some interesting stuff like their 'Layoff Reports,' which track layoffs at Seattle businesses (181 from the Seattle P-I, included). This paper seems to be in direct competition with what's left of The Seattle P-I. Over on the P-I's front page the Seattle Sounders (a local Soccer team) was the top story. I guess if I live in Seattle reading about Sasquatches and Soccer could be my top priority. I imagine that each of these stories is interesting, but I have to ask, where's the news?
Discovering The Courant through a search for cartoons about newspapers got me thinking though. It's kind of like the the whole internet functions the way newspapers used to. We've had that discussion in class a dozen times now, about how our parents used to read the newspapers for one particular thing that interested them, like sports or entertainment, and then this cool thing happened; they'd discover something else that they hadn't set out to read like international news, a story focussing on politics or a movie review. Well, my cartoon search worked much the same way. I was looking for a cartoon for my blog, and I discovered The Courant, and a bunch of really interesting Seattle stories about Sasquatches, sporting events and city council meetings. But this is where the cool connections came to a halt. That's because The Courant does not seem to link to other publications or really anything else on the Web. So instead of continuing my adventure of news discovery, I was basically circling an information cul-de-sac. This basically shot down my original theory, that the internet is the new newspaper, to pieces, which was quite disappointing. But I think my hypothesis is half true. As the internet becomes more interconnected through links and aggregation, we may see the internet acting more like a newspaper. Meantime we'll have to keep backing out of dead ends, like The Courant. Or, perhaps, some folks may actually decide they like it there an decide to stay.
Daysha, I think this gets to the core of some of the arguments I've made in class, that the Internet doesn't necessarily replace newspapers. Meanwhile, the commentary in the cartoon is spot on. The key is how online outlets position themselves.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with you to some extent, though, that The Courant isn't analogous to what you'd do with a newspaper. Isn't that EXACTLY what would happen looking at a newspaper? You'd pick it up, read what was relevant to you, then not be able to go to other publications. It might only work if you had a stack of papers on the table. I realize your point is that the internet as a whole is like the old newspaper, with the linking articles and the meandering paths of reading. But anyone with a newspaper might have decided they like it there and they wanted to stay. I don't think the analogy is separate sections of the newspaper are to individual Web sites what an individual newspaper is to the Internet. Yes, it's a shame the Courant didn't link out. But overall, I think I wouldn't back away from the comparison you're making here.