If I ran a newspaper, it would take all its news from the Reuters and AP wires. I like their house styles and their broadly unbiased coverage (whereas even the Telegraph, the UK’s final bastion of newspaper journalism, has descended into agenda-driven tabloid hell) – and they’re far better resourced than any startup paper could afford to be.
To offset the dry news pages, the comment and analysis section would be a den of inflammatory madness. We’d hire moderates, extremists and jokers from all sides. As well as contributions from professional hacks and The (Great/Irrelevant) And The (Good/Bad), we’d republish articles from crazy right-wing bloggers and left-wing maniacs [*] alike (in both cases, having rigorously copy-edited them to ensure their authors’ intellectual disabilities were reflected only in terms of content rather than style). Nobody should come away from the comment section unoffended or unchallenged.
It’d be fun.
[*] Can’t find any lefties who even come close to the glorious insanity of the minor bloggers on the US right. Would appreciate links if anyone can…
You’re right. That could be a lot of fun….
The FT was still doing straight news the last I looked, even if they do tend to keep it on the inside pages (and behind the subscription wall).
Still: If you like papers in which the news section is all wire copy, you are going to enjoy the future. It’s what you have to do to make free dailies viable. Unfortunately, the other thing you have to do is beat every story into froth so that you can appeal to the kind of people your advertisers think they want…
>Can’t find any lefties who even come close to the glorious insanity of the minor bloggers on the US right. Would appreciate links if anyone can…
How ’bout this one?
http://www.stalinism.com/shot-by-both-sides/
Come on, John, you asked for that one!