I was just watching the interview with Steve Jobs at the D8 Conference on iTunes. Around 41 minutes into the interview, there is a discussion about how the iPad is going to help journalists.
Jobs makes his second hint in the interview of his distaste for bloggers. His first happened earlier when they were discussing Gizmodo’s blogger who published pictures of the new iPhone. One could tell that he was a bit bitter about that situation, and he made comments that showed that in his opinion blogging is not journalism.
I totally agree with this point. Blogging isn’t journalism by default. As the interviewers pointed out, however, many journalists have turned to blogging as their medium of choice.
During the discussion of the iPad, Jobs points out that he doesn’t want to see us become a nation of bloggers. He states that he wants to help publications like the New York Times and the Washington Post sell their news.
Here is what I don’t agree with. These publications are failing because they have not been providing good journalism. All I see from the media, including news papers, is biased rhetoric or celebrity junk. Bloggers are doing the same, but I’ve found that in the bee’s hive that is the blogosphere, there is actually some good content. Some of that content is much better than the junk our fine journalists at CNN and such have been reporting.
If these publications want to make money, they should advertise. That’s where most of their money comes from anyway. They don’t make a ton from News Paper sales. They make enough there to pay for the materials and printing costs. Advertisements are where the money is at. They know that. They should just work on their advertising model.