cankerbloxxom

buyhercandy:

One take on Fairfax’s new digital opinion/commentary outlet, National Times. I’m reserving judgement for a few more days, myself. So far, it seems to be going pretty well, but Jason Whittaker certainly has a point re: National Times’ use of Fairfax’s pre-existing contributors:

Let’s call these websites what they really are: another cheap web platform for advertising. (Cleverly, Fairfax has set up The Times on its existing news sites, localising and maximising advertising revenue.) Any suggestion of a contribution to journalism from either The Punch or The National Times is bunkum.

Just to be clear (and to pre-empt the expected rebuttal), The Times will, indeed, feature very fine writing from some very fine journalists. It’s an impressive line-up. And good op-ed – the well-researched, insider-type material that many of these journalists are capable of – is absolutely an important contribution to national affairs comprehension.

Analytical writing can be worthy and wonderful journalism.

But this new website won’t be doing it. It will draw on already over-stretched writers who work for, and are paid by, printed newspapers with fast-declining readerships. Almost all of the “original” content comes from existing Fairfax writers and bloggers, or unpaid contributions (read: uncensored soapboxes for politicians).

There is nothing new to see here.

This is pretty much my view after looking at it for about 5 minutes today.