New Media - Written by Robert Ivan on Sunday, December 28, 2008 2:41 - 2 Comments

Will The Paul Mulshine Fiasco Steepen Newspapers’ Decline? – twitter #mulshine

For the complete backstory read:

-Mulshine’s original anti blogger post on WSJ.com
-Metaprinter’s Paul Mulshine reaction here
-Jay Rosen’s reaction here
-instapundit’s reaction here
-A Blog Around The Clock’s thorough reaction here (you must also visit this site to marvel at his header image. It is beautiful)

- any twitter reactions? tag them with #mulshine

Down to business now. So Paul Mulshine works for the Newark New Jersey Star-Ledger. For the sake of full disclosure I worked there my self until this June when I took a buyout from the pressroom. I’ve since received my MA from NYU, blog, and do consulting work. Mulshine wrote an Opinion piece in the Weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal which boils down to: bloggers are idiots, they aren’t real journalists.

I’m attempting to get some interviews with Journalism schools and newspapers as I type. My biggest question is what does his post intend to accomplish and the question is broken down as follows:

what you think of his opinion of blogging and confusion of punditry
what this means for newspapers now
how does this impact the youth of today’s image of newspapers and nj.com/ the star ledger?
what this means for journalism students and prospective students
Re his article (last line) have you ever met a genius on the Internet?

Will his insular remarks further hasten the decline of the newspaper industry? For the people that have not already been convinced, I feel they might. Journalism and Communications students are encouraged to create and explore blogs as viable forms of communication and reporting. They are encouraged to explore any new form of communication and business model. Mulshine craps on this exploration. Now what? we’re all wrong? None of us can spell pundit? What? Mulshine’s article does not insult an entire generation and a community 125 million strong, it reaffirms their notion that newspaper are clueless and irrelevant. What the heck was he thinking?

I’m absolutely looking for feedback on this one.

PS. Mulshine Claims that only hardnosed journalists can do stories like this:

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2 Comments

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Joe
Dec 28, 2008 11:11

It is understandable to see why an established print journalist such as Paul Mulshine would shun online pundits/bloggers and it seems to go beyond simply the established player battling an arrogant upstart. Mulshine tips his hand and disposition when he describes the Star Ledger as “a hard copy of a publication packed with solid, interesting reporting,” and Mulshine further defends his horse by stating:

There is a real flaw in the thinking of those who herald the era of citizen journalism. They assume newspapers are going out of business because we aren’t doing what we in fact do amazingly well, which is to quickly analyze and report on complex public issues. The real reason they’re under pressure is much more mundane. The Internet can carry ads more cheaply, particularly help-wanted and automotive ads.

A deeper issue (and probably the most pronounced one) is revealed, economics, the online services can attract more advertisers and at cheaper rates; package this along with some second rate (or no-rate blogging in Mulshine’s mind) and here is Mulshine’s gripe. I don’t believe Paul Mulshine has an issue with facility of blogging or online news bloggers however I do he believe he strongly detests blogging pundits that attempt to compete with his media service directly as he doesn’t recognize them as viable resource for this activity. Through in revenue competition and it turns into some snot nosed teenager playing Alex Rodriguez in WII baseball for his contract.

For Want of a Google Search, Paul Mulshine Was Lost at Blog P.I.
Dec 28, 2008 17:22

[...] well be adopted by those watching from a short distance. So far Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit and Robert Ivan at Metaprinter have ably pointed out the many flaws in his piece, but I’d like to tackle another. Here is [...]