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The New Journalism: Goosing the Gray Lady

A nice write-up on the group leading the web team at the NY Times. Nothing really new here for those who follow online journalism, but a nice write-up nonetheless. I find myself intrigued by the last couple paragraphs of the piece. Aron Pilhofer, who led the charge to renovate the Times online, says, “One of the New York Times’ roles in this new world is authority -- and that’s probably the rarest commodity on the web." I think there's a certain truth to that, a part which I readily agree with -- authority is rare on the web -- but then on reflection, it seems like such a print-centric statement. This is one of the best and most present qualities of the web that it supplants and undermines any notion of "authority." And here we have the Times trying to assert authority. I'm just not sure in the long run that such an approach doesn't ultimately put you out of sync with current sentiments, and therefore, force you to always play catch up.

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Comments

Aron Pilhofer on January 17, 2009 at 12:56 p.m.

I hear you, and I definitely agree that the Web undermines a traditional notion of authority as you say -- and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

But I'm curious why and how you think the Web supplants it? If anything, I'd argue just the opposite: that as the Web gets ever more cacophonous, trusted sources of news, information and original reporting will be more valued than ever.

Still, I'm curious why you feel the opposite, and would love to hear you expound on this a bit in a future post if you're of a mind.

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