RAGBRAI Organizers Split from Register
- Thread starter cyowan
- Start date
It's a disturbing trend - more and more people who are normally level headed are losing their minds when it comes to media.
I've got no particular love of the Register myself and if they were to just close up shop eventually due to declining business I wouldn't shed a tear, but wanting them destroyed is a very scary thing to me. In my mind, things like this are the canary in the coal mine that something is very seriously wrong with American society today. Saying you want to shut down the Des Moines Register based on the fact that you don't like what they have to say is not far off from a book burning. The concept is the same - destroying something that is spreading a message you don't agree with.
How do we fix it? My personal thought is that we need to de-politicize the news. I would even go as far as to say that all news media must be non-profit. In the old days, everyone was required to try to be as neutral as they could. We need to find a way to separate political commentary from news and ban political commentators (and politicians) from leveling partisan claims against the news media. Much easier said than done and maybe impossible.
"And a replacement." Sure, because newspapers - online, much less in print - just pop up every day.
"Too much baggage" because they printed something not that was factually untrue, but that people didn't like. And that the subject publicly thanked them for bringing to his attention.
Listen to yourselves. This is insane.
For those trying to 'protect' the Register, saying we are better off with it than without it, I certainly don't disagree. That being said, they and all the other print media that is dying needs to adapt to the changing market. The free press is still a free market enterprise, and for it to stay that way they need to be economically viable. By the definition of a free press, you can't subsidize it, or it is no longer a free press.
I'm really curious to know who here is "protecting" anything, or who is proposing to subsidize anything.
You didn’t read what I said. It’s eventually in the next decade going to die regardless. It dying now might be the catalyst that creates a vacuum for a new paper to come in. If it just continues to slowly die out we definitely won’t have a replacement.
They have the baggage of their readers not having faith in them. There are a multitude of reasons for that some deserved and a lot not. The ability to understand what is newsworthy and what is not is one of the most important parts of journalism. This particular issue cratered that view of them. You can think it’s dumb people are mad but that’s reality and that’s just how it works. There’s also the fact that they’ve consistently been cutting content especially local content and raising their price. That really has hurt them. Then you bring in the whole fake news stuff (personally I don’t get the claims against the Register) that has led people to not trust them.
I think that ultimately there is the appetite for a new type of newspaper. I think a local paper that sets their website up similar to a physical paper and has some limited actual distribution would be successful. I also think a paper needs to be upfront about their biases. No longer should journalists be apolitical. They should share their political views while differentiating it from their reporting so people can’t accuse them of so called fake news.
The news will not totally go away but it will go through a massive shift over the next decade.
Well...if you look at any comments from the die-hard biking community, they mostly seem to back the organizers over the Register. They know better than us where the bodies are buried....and seem to not be taking the Register's side on this at all . That tells me a lot.
Great points. Seems like the "news" has become more opinionized and political than unbiased reporting in some formats these days. That's not to say there is not a place for op-ed's too but that's what a lot of the news seems to be anymore is opinionated reporting that is designed to form an opinioned view of a story for the viewer/audience and not just report on the facts and allow the audience to process and draw their own conclusions from them. The internet and cable news networks have really opened up the doors to this happening and unfortunately it's been trickling down into the newspapers and major network reporting as well because the name of the game is revenue and how you generate revenue is by creating buzz and just plan old fashioned non-opinionated reporting doesn't create much buzz these days.
There are a ton of people that don't want to see the Register die because of this or other issues. There are also a ton of people that do want to see the Register die because of this or other things.
My message is that the 'dying press' needs to figure out how to make it in the changing market place, or it is going to die. People are not (nor should not IMO) going pay for something they do not feel there is a value. In other words, if people canceled their subscriptions due to the Carson King story, or for other reasons, more power to them. It is how the whole thing is supposed to work.
You said he had no problems with the Register before this.
Yeah....I'm sure he loved continuing to put in the time it takes to have a successful ride, while at the same time not being paid for periods of time due to lay-offs.
My theory has always been that this split has been brewing under the surface. The Carson thing was simply the final straw.
I’ve got two words for you: Randy Peterson.
Now tell me again who is the insane party here?
I'll admit I kept my subscription going through this whole ordeal...but it was the closest I've ever been to cancelling.
That said, I don't know how much more of the fuse that has been burnt is left for another big blunder...
That said, I don't know how much more of the fuse that has been burnt is left for another big blunder...
HE said he had no problem with the register before. He stated it VERY clearly. You need to go listen to the rest of the interview. What you quoted was what he said at the end of the interview to point out he had made sacrifices and how dedicated he was to the job.
Yes, I agree that he has been thinking about this for a while and the King episode provided him a good opportunity to part ways. Im sure he probably did have problems with that stuff. But that was NOT what he said. He is doing a poor job explaining himself and his motives.
I’m sure it has been discussed but just to reiterate Gannett, parent company of DMR, has little interest in Ragbrai and the liability that comes with it. Hopefully the name gets sold and ragbrai continues on happily ever after.
Why is it insane? What is the dmr doing that we can’t live without? They generally report a slanted news angle therefore what they provide isn’t used, consumed, or valued by the spectrum they choose to alienate. It’s not insane. It’s there own decision. I’d say it’s an insane decision on their part to run their business this way. I find it crazy that people think if the dmr folds that all of the sudden big bad things are gonna happen. The sky ain’t falling Chicken Little...
honestly a vast majority do actually ride the route.
Quite a coincidence that they scheduled the Iowa ride same week as the real deal. Must have had scheduling conflicts the other fifty one weeks. Who are your die hard biking sources?
