At 8/10/09 01:09 AM, UnrealClock wrote:
At 8/10/09 01:09 AM, ConradB wrote:
The Objectivist theory of perception distinguishes between the form and object. The form in which an organism perceives is determined by the physiology of its sensory systems. Whatever form the organism perceives it in, what it perceives-the object of perception-is reality. Rand consequently rejected the Kantian dichotomy between "things as we perceive them" and "things as they are in themselves". The distinction between form and object is inconsistent with naive realism. The directness with which the object is perceived is inconsistent with representationalism or indirect realism that accepts a "veil of perception," as put forward by Descartes or John Locke. For similar reasons, Rand rejected the arguments traditionally made by epistemological skeptics against the possibility of knowledge "undistorted" by the form or the means of perception.
The human need for art, on this view, stems from the need for cognitive economy. A concept is already a sort of mental shorthand standing for a large number of concretes, allowing a human being to think indirectly or implicitly of many more such concretes than can be held explicitly in mind. But a human being cannot hold indefinitely many concepts explicitly in mind either-and yet, on the Objectivist view, needs a comprehensive conceptual framework in order to provide guidance in life. Art offers a way out of this dilemma by providing a perceptual, easily grasped means of communicating and thinking about a wide range of abstractions, including one's metaphysical value-judgments. Objectivism regards art as an effective way to communicate a moral or ethical ideal.
And while I'm obviously not privy to the traffic numbers, I would guess that from the comments alone, it's pretty clear that Pete's Yankee blog for The Journal News of Westchester gets a lot more traffic than Kepner's Yankee blog for the gold standard NY Times. The content is often frighteningly similar, but the community makes a huge difference. Building up a community is a skill that journalists (and newspapers) need to learn. Whether on purpose or not, Pete's been quite good at it.
And, from that we get to Pete's second point: questioning how newspapers, such as his own, can continue paying for the expense of beat writers. Here there are a few different potential answers. Pete has attracted a large enough community, that if the Journal News hasn't figured out how to profit from him and the "expense" of having him on payroll as a beat writer, then they're doing something wrong. But even if a newspaper couldn't afford him, with the community that Pete has built up, if the Yankees would allow him to be an independent beat writer, I'd bet he could bring in a fair amount of money that way. Team Pete up with a business guy and a tech guy, and go to town. Everyone would benefit. The Yankees would get more awesome coverage and a huge community of vocal, loyal Yankee fans. Pete would still have a job. And us fans would still have a great place to gather virtually.
But there's a separate issue as well. I've already mentioned some of the overlap between Pete and Tyler. But those are only two of the beat writers. There are also Yankee beat writers from the NY Post, the NY Daily News, Newsday, the New Jersey Record, WFAN, MLB.com and perhaps some others as well. I follow a bunch of their blogs and Twitter accounts, and there's a tremendous amount of overlap. I am not saying to just dump them all and have a single beat writer. But at some point you do have to wonder about why it makes sense to have so many reporters effectively reporting the exact same thing.
Also, there are other models that are coming out for paying for reporters. Mark Cuban has talked about actually having the sports teams pay the newspaper for coverage -- which certainly horrifies some reporters, but is yet another potential model, since the teams themselves benefit from the coverage. On top of that, we're seeing nationally focused publications -- such as ESPN and Sports Illustrated -- snap up lots of top reporters. Hell, just this week Sports Illusrated hired away another favorite of mine, Joe Posnanski. And while they don't do so yet, you could see national media like that add beat reporters as well.
Of course, if they're going to do that, they shouldn't do silly things like tell their reporters they have to limit their Twitter usage, as ESPN recently did.
Then, you have the fact that there are many impressive fan-driven blogs adding to the ecosystem as well. I'm certainly not suggesting that the fan-driven blogs replace the beat reporters, but it is an addition that fills in a lot more information and insight. I get a ton of insightful analysis about the Yankees via River Avenue Blues, a blog run by three fans, who are knowledgeable, thoughtful and insightful when it comes to the state of the Yankees. And, sometimes they get or break news as well. While these fanblogs and the beat reporters mostly have a pretty good relationship, you'd think that those could be leveraged even more, to enable the creation of more great content that drives more community. Teams should allow more access to the top fan blogs, and the news publications should be teaming up with some of the best fanblogs as well to leverage their insight and traffic for their own business models.
