logictortured.com Blog

The death of newspapers will not kill investigatory journalism!

March 30, 2009 on 12:25 pm | In General | 1 Comment

Everyone is saying that the death of the newspaper will kill off investigatory journalism. But it will not. And let’s face it, it’s a complete myth that most newspapers did any serious investigatory journalism anyway.

Think of it this way, when newspapers were first published, way back in the 17th century, was their purpose to expose local corruption? The answer to that is no.

Newspapers at the time were focused on foreign events. As time went on local news was added. Local information, such as train schedules, were added. And over more time, reporting on local corruption was added. And then after that, newspapers actually started investigating corruption. But that was neither the initial purpose nor the focus of the newspaper. However, because a need for such investigation was recognized, the newspaper developed to meet that need. If the need exists, investigations will continue.

Every city has a few rabble-rousers, who despite not being paid a penny, make it their lives to keep an eye on government, file FIOA requests, attend all city government hearings and functions, to take copious notes, and now, blog about it.

And lets face it, with the bare-boned budgets most newspapers are facing, the first thing to cut was local reporting. I actually laughed in the face of a local newspaper reporter who decried the fall of investigatory journalism. I asked him, when was the last time he wrote such a piece. Of course he never did.

I reminded him of the time I told him about a local car dealership which was ripping off customers. He wasn’t interested until charges were filed.* He did not want to investigate it! The rabble-rouser blogger would have been all over it like cheese on a pizza.

And think about this, exactly where were the journalists investigating all the financial shenanigans which caused our current crisis? These so called professional investigatory journalists could not even discover the simple truth that Madoff was nothing but a ponzi scam. And that’s just one simple example.

* Part of the reason for the hesitation was that once charges are filed, the newspaper can report on the charges without being liable for any defamation. Because, the fact that charges were in fact filed makes the report factually accurate. However, once a newspaper starts investigating and uncovering facts itself, it opens themselves up to a huge can of lawyer-whoopass.

Update – August 16, 2009: The Consumerist reported on a consumer protection reporter being fired from his newspaper for going after a corrupt company, which also happened to be one of the newspapers advertisers.

This is exactly what I’ve been talking about. Relying on corporations to root out corruption will never work!

A rebuttal to John Mellencamp’s view on the decline of the music industry

March 25, 2009 on 1:02 pm | In General, Music, internet | 2 Comments

John Mellencamp wrote a piece about what’s wrong with the music industry. While he made some good points, some of his points were completely erroneous.

His point about the music industry being taken over by bean counters is completely correct. I worked in a mom & pop music store from the mid 80s to the mid 90s, the exact time John was talking about. What he left out was that music industry intentionally set out to kill such stores. Starting about in the 90s stores such as Best Buy were selling CDs cheaper than we could buy them at wholesale. But of course retailers such as Best Buy and Walmart does not have the knowledgeable staff that a real music store would have. So when you were looking for a particular artists or CD, you could find it with us. At a big box retailer, you’d get a shoulder shrug and a confused look. (But of course the music store would have died anyway, because the internet is a more efficient system for researching and buying music.)

His criticism of SoundScan is not completely correct. He praised the prior system which was based on “manual research.” But because that system was not based on any objective criteria, it was easily gamed. Here’s a specific example. During the time it switched we sold cassette singles. One song on one cassette. Paula Abdul had a number one single the week prior to the switch. The week it switched, the single dropped completely off the charts. Why? Because no one was actually buying it! SoundScan used actual sales to chart hits, which means it was harder for the music industry to manufacture hits.

He complains that after the switch to SoundScan that “All of a sudden there were #1 records that few of us had ever heard of.” That’s because the charts were no longer being gamed! Duh, is he really that ignorant about what was going on?

Suddenly the music we’ve been selling a lot of, alt metal (i.e., metal that was not oriented around hair styles), alternative, country, and rap dominated the charts. Because that’s what people were actually buying.

John then criticizes modern music because you cannot sing it. But parents and old fogies have been doing that for generations. The biggest mistake any musician makes is thinking that his style of music will never go out of style. Styles change John, get used to it.

Of course John is right, completely right, that the music industry completely missed the boat on portable music.

But his argument that he does not want to be a “P.T. Barnum” is pure nonsense. On one hand he wants to be completely free to make music, and not worry about anything else. And that’s fine. He can do that. No one is stopping him from doing that. The nonsense comes from him wanting to do nothing but music, but also demanding access to everyone’s ears. Or to put it another way, he wants to do exactly what he wants to do, without any compromise and earn a very good living in the process. He does not want to sit alone in his room making music, he wants to “enrich” the world with his art, and enrich his bank account. A question to John, since when does the world owe you a good living for doing exactly what you want?!

And here’s a note to John, the internet will allow both! He can sit in his room and do nothing but eat, write, perform, record, and sleep. And he can put his music up for sale on Amazon and iTunes, or sell it himself. He can have complete freedom and access to the world without ever leaving his house, and without signing away his precious freedom and copyrights to the labels!

I wish to god that we had the net back when I was a musician in the 80s and 90s. It would have made it much easier to escape obscurity and to please fans worldwide. The fact that John is oblivious to this borders on a mental condition on his part.

Update 11/19/10:

John might be starting to get it. Here’s a good quote from a recent interview.

So the greatest thing that ever happened to (my career) was the breakdown of the record companies, because there were no more stupid questions about how many hits are on the next record. It was very liberating. These records we make now are just a calling card for me to go out and play. I was on tour with Bob (Dylan), and he said it was that way when he started. He didn’t expect his records to sell. It was a way of getting out there and playing for people, and that’s the way the record business has come around now.

That’s exactly what I said. Dumping your label and using the net for promotion allows complete artistic freedom.