Celebritology: Who's relevant in 2012-2013 according to Time, its readers and myself?

Celebritology is highly relevant to me in the field of news. In TV and films, I delve into actors and there relevance, but looking at every celebrity from every field and contemplating their relative importance to one another is a highly refined art for anyone writing about news because anyone writing articles for even a community level has to think objectively about who and what is newsworthy when undergoing both the pitching and selection process. I decided not only to dive into this year's poll that precedes Time's 100 Most Influential People issue but to publicize those results as well. In making my decisions, I openly admit I'm biased with personal relevance and the degree of personal contact I've had with the stories of these people, which is the filter through which we all experience and decide what is newsworthy. Here are the first fifty names out of the 153 candidates.

The numbers after the names are the percentage of online viewers who deemed them newsworthy/influential/relevant after which is my vote which is either Yes, No or Abstain (if I didn't have enough info to make a decision either way):

Ben Affleck-53%-Yes-His comeback story captivated us and in the process said a lot about our relationship with celebrities. Also, winning the Oscar for best picture and gaming the voting system in the process surely makes you relevant.

Roger Ailes (Fox News Chief)-Abstain-Just not educated enough about him and his role to know much. I'd argue that the most partisan news networks didn't shape the 2012 election as much as previous ones but I don't know his extent into it all

Bashar Assad-Yes-He's killed 70,000 people for godsakes. When the Onion writes an article that barely qualifies as satire and looks more as a desperate attempt to inform people of the atrocity, you're not only relevant, but more people should definitely know about you. Just to reiterate here, newsworthy doesn't necessarily qualify as a good thing.

Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin politician and the first openly gay U.S. Senator)-82%-No-It's 2012. Being an openly gay anything except possibly professional sports player isn't enough to warrant relevance in my eyes. 

Benedict XVI-45%-No-Being the retiring Pope isn't as newsworthy as being the incoming Pope who looks to bring some real reforms and attitude changes, so I'd rather see the news coverage go to the new guy

David and Victoria Beckham-20%-Yes-I'm contradicting myself because I advocated not caring about a retiree in my last vote, but then again, Beckham's reign with MLS (and the end of that reign is newsworthy via its timeliness) did lead to spectacular growth for the league which provides a lesson to other leagues on how to create an international sensation. Victoria, on her own, is the least newsworthy entry on the entire list.

Fatou Bensouda (Gambian lawyer/UN Prosecutor)-75%-Yes-Although it's close to abstain because I'm not that well-informed on this issue

Beyonce-68%-Yes-An activist whose especially close to the Obama administration, one of the most popular singers of the present day, performed at both the Inaguration and the Superbowl, that qualifies in the world of arts

Kathryn Bigelow-63%-No-I saw the movie myself and it wasn't too far-removed from an episode of Homeland. In other words, Bigelow's not the first to explore the dark side to the world on terrorism and eloquently put it into art.

Michael Bloomberg-62%-Yes-As a remarkable politician who's usurping the very democratic ideal of term limits in the country's most powerful city, Bloomberg is nearly always relevant, but the timeliness angle helps which comes from the soda ban controversy and the gun laws

Usain Bolt-78%-Marginally Yes-In 2008 and 2009 he would be a resounding yes, but timeliness is about something new which he didn't necessarily do. He still made the biggest headlines in the Summer Olympics which is the biggest sporting event in history

Cory Booker-72%-Yes-This is almost an abstain for me, because while I'm well-informed about him as a person and how he's one of the country's most effective mayors and most forward-thinking and politicians, I am unclear as to his timeliness. I recently went to a talk by a couple young mayors and they both said they were heavily inspired by Booker which barely qualifies him in my relative experience. The point here is that news is timely and its also personally relevant.

David Bowie-82%-No-Yes, he's famous, but timeliness, guys: What have you done for me lately? The timeliness problem is why I cringe at the fact that Paul McCartney seems to get interviewed every two or three months by some gushy morning show anchor. It's also why I suspect he has a high vote

Ben Bernake-Abstain-I'm not well-informed about the topics in the business section of the newspaper

Jeff Bezos-84%-No-I can't vote yes for every internet CEO. I'm going to use timeliness here and suggest that Bezos is inevitably doing great things every year, but I don't remember hearing of anything particularly notable coming from Amazon

John Brennan-45%-Yes-His confirmation process was protested by innocent bystanders if that's not enough controversy for you. 

Connie Britton-30%-No-Please, she's not even a good actress. 

Warren Beatty-Abstain

Emad Burnat-(Palestinian documentarian whose 5 Broken Cameras was nominated for an Oscar)-83%-No-Being nominated for an Academy Award for best film makes you far more relevant than best documentary. Five films get nominated each year and far fewer than that number (What else besides Exit Through the Gift Shop, Waiting for Superman, An Inconvenient Truth, Michael Moore's films, Supersize Me do you guys actually remember?) actually make their way into the cultural consciousness. As someone who follows film, I haven't heard of that one (remember: personal relevance comes through personal experience so I'm judging based on whether something is newsworthy to me)

David Cameron-49%-Yes-The Prime Minister of Britain is big enough that I'll give a rare timeliness pass to. In other words, I know nothing about what he's done in the past 12 months, but I'll make an educated guess that he, being the PM of Great Britain has done plenty.

Sister Simone Campbell (Executive director of Network, a liberal Catholic advocacy group, and leader of the Nuns on the Bus movement to promote public programs for the poor)-83%-Yes-I've read about her in the news and with religion being a hot topic this year, that makes her more relevant

Robert Cantu (Neurosurgeon, co-director of Boston University’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy and a leading expert on concussions)-86%-Marginally Yes-The gimmick here is that he's being put in the Top 100 to put a face on the science community that's involved with the hot topic on football concussions. However, the question is whether Robert Cantu, himself, is significant in the battle against preventing concussions, or whether he's one of many professionals that is getting a disproportionate share of the credit. At the end of the day, I think the football concussion debate deserves a larger platform of readership which would be accomplished with Cantu's inclusion.

Robert Caro (Journalist and author of a 30-years-in-the-making Lyndon B. Johnson opus)-40%-Marginal Yes-Distinguishing between academics in terms of relevance is a difficult task because so many of them are quietly changing and influencing the world. Caro gets a yes from me because, if nothing else he's interesting (devoting 30 years of your life on a book about Lyndon Johnson, who would do that?) and I'd like to read more about him. 

Jackie Chan (Hong Kong martial-arts king and outspoken Chinese political appointee)-78%-No-His newsworthiness as a movie star (seriously, check the box office receipts on his films) is at least 10 years past its expiration date, and to what degree is he being an outspoken voice with regard to Chinese policy. It's like how at least one out of every three famous people in Hollywood is an ambassador for UNICEF. I admire your commitment to a cause, guys, but in very few cases have I ever been influenced by your message (not to take away from the people in those foreign countries hearing your message). 

Jessica Chastain-60%-Yes-Although she didn't win the Oscar, Chastain is one of the hottest and most relevant actresses in Hollywood and her amazing performance in Bigelow's film did a lot to capture the zeitgeist on the War on Terror. Bigelow made a film that, at the end of the day, proved unremarkable, but the performance of Chastain in that film is worth talking about. 

Ferrodon Abbasi-Davani (Head of Iran’s nuclear program)-49%-Abstain-I have no idea of his involvement with said nuclear program so a big fat abstain for me. 

Chan Guangang  (Activist holding China to account from exile in New York City)-84%-Yes-It's the difference between any old Civil Rights leader or Harriett Tubman or Rosa Parks. The latter examples are remarkable stories that moves and inspires us. Aside from causing an international incident, he inspires us.

Perry Chen, CEO of Kickstarter-94%-Yes-He's changing art and commerce so most definitely. He's the reason you cautiously vote no on someone like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg or the Google guys. In technology news, always be on the lookout for the next best thing. 

Yao Chen, Chinese Microblogger-63%-No-Sorry lady, there's only room for one Chinese activist in our national cultural consciousness and Guangang took that spot, but you finish ahead of Jackie Chan in my book. 

Chris Christie-63%-Yes-Governors are so interesting in terms of newsworthiness because they usually are bright, colorful, and often uninhibited public figures with a lot more power than their national coverage usually merits. In the case of Christie with Hurricane Sandy and his influence on the presidential race, a resounding yes. 

Bill Clinton-Abstain-He's relevant every year and every political news election. It would be difficult to separate 2012 Bill Clinton from 2011 Bill Clinton from 2004 Bill Clinton so I won't even try. 

Hillary Clinton-Yes-Being Seceretary of State is already high enough on the relevance factor, but throwing in the fact that she was under scrutiny for Bengazi as she was exiting and that became one of the hot button issues in the 2012 race qualifies her

Tom Coburn-29%-No, Sorry esteemed Senator buddy, I live in Washington and read Politico on my commute often and your name hasn't popped up enough to my liking

Bryan Cranston-72%-No, as a TV blogger who's been exposed to message board discussions and articles along the lines of "Breaking Bad: Best show of the year, best show of all time, or single greatest thing since sliced bread" for the past five years or so, I'm calling B.S. on timeliness. Bryan Cranston and Breaking Bad have both been mind-boggingly deserving of praise for the past five years. Nothing new here. Especially since the show doesn't officially end till this summer. If you want to give Breaking Bad a relevance bump upon its finale, at least wait until the 2014 issue. 

Andrew Cuomo-75%-No. Being Governor of the one of the most important states in the country and the one that, by far, commands the most news coverage, doesn't automatically make you man of the year, sorry. Also, I'm not buying nepotism as an excuse here either. 

Paula Deen (Popular TV cooking personality raising awareness about diabetes)-20%-No-I have only barely heard of you and seriously doubt you're having as much of an effect on our consumption as the great Jamie Oliver has. As Emeril Lagasse, Padma Lakshmi, Rachel Ray, Ted Allen and a billion others have demonstrated: I'm sure you'll be replaced with the next, best thing on the Food Network before this issue goes to press.

Jack Dorsey (Twitter creator and a founder and CEO of Square, a company that allows smartphone users to process credit-card payments through their mobile devices)-88%-Yes-Twitter is growing but the advent of Square really seals it

Kim Dotcom (Eccentric Internet legend and creator of the controversial file-sharing site Megaupload who has seen his influence rise along with his legal troubles)-74%-No-I'm philosophically against this person's movement of the internet being free and open source and intellectual property be damned, but then again being a bad guy doesn't disqualify you from being newsworthy (as noted with Assad). Instead, it's the fact that wanting to free the internet is nothing new.  If we're going to acknowledge Kim dotcom, are we going to give news attention to the guys selling bootleg DVDs on Times Square or the person who steals candy from the candy store?

Gabby Douglas-88%-Yes-As opposed to the first openly gay senator, being the first black Gold Medal gymnast seems relevant to me because that is one of the premiere sports in the Olympics. Her post-racial attitude towards the accomplishment was also discussion-provoking. She was also AP female athlete of the year and that's the sort of quantifiable evidence you can use to her case

Dr. James Downing (Scientific director at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, where his Pediatric Cancer Genome Project is decoding the genetic drivers of childhood cancers)-98%-No-It's almost an abstain because I haven't heard of his project, but at the end of the day, I went with the argument against Robert Cantu and deemed him unnewsworthy because a lot of people are fighting cancer every year and I haven't read any newspaper headlines in the past 12 months that say "Cancer Cured!"

Lena Dunham-54%-No-This is based on the personal relevance angle here: I haven't seen her show which reflects how the landscape of TV has changed from 20 years ago. There are so many good must-see programs that practically no TV aficionado can see them all which dilutes the influence of any TV personality.

Daniel Ek (Founder and CEO of Spotify, the booming music-streaming service)-76%-No-When compares to twitter, square and kickstarter, I don't think Spotify makes the cut. First of all, Spotify's newness is diluted by the advent of Pandora which came first. Second of all, the crises revolving around the externalities of music sharing mostly happened in the 2000's. Youtube ads and itunes were the big heroes of the day.

Jimmy Fallon-66%-Marginal Yes-He's gotten more popular in the past couple years, his entertainment style is definitely new and relevant from a media-perspective (he incorporates facebook, the news, and twitter into his segments) and he's slotted to take over for Leno now so he's an even bigger player on the landscape.  

Mo Farrah-British track star-81%-Marginal Yes-I'm a beat writer for distance running so I think the guy's accomplishment is humongous when I realize how few people are able to double at the Olympics (especially in a British uniform). Aside from the personal perspective, I think as a hometown hero, he's also a somewhat of a big deal and star of the London Olympics

Melinda Gates-Abstain

Neil Gaiman (Prolific cult novelist with 1.8 million Twitter followes and an HBO show in the works)-96%-No-1.8 million Twitter followers was newsworthy outside the twittersphere in 2010 but not anymore. Voting yes for Neil would be breaking a long-standing journalistic rule: Don't give too much coverage to a guy who hasn't acomplished anything yet. An HBO show in the works isn't significant. The guy who made the now-cancelled "Sh%t My Parents Say" is a long-forgotten part of pop culture although he was a hot news item before the show aired

John Green (Teen fiction author and video blogger with legions of online fans)-95%-No-I'm on youtube a lot and have never heard of this guy and without a quantitative number of fans, I'm definitely in the no category. Again as with Neil, crossing over to mainstream media and succeeding wildly there is what would get my vote with internet media content wunderkinds. 

Roger Goodell (Commissioner of pro football, which remains America’s most popular sport despite a rising tide of safety concerns)-11%-As I mentioned before I think the safety concerns of football is very relevant and appropriate hot button topic.

Julian Fellowes-67%-Marginal Yes-I'm making a choice based on taste here between two shows I've never seen that Downtown Abbey is marginally worth talking about in the Time 100 Issue and voting Fellowes in.

Julia Gillard (Australian Prime Minister whose parliamentary speech about the opposition leader’s misogyny was heard around the world)-Abstain-Australia is either a G8 country or as important as one so if she was just elected Prime Minister I'd be more willing to consider her for a year, but the blurb doesn't say. A female head of state (see Brazil, Liberia, Argentina, Germany) is nothing new in this day of age and I'd expect that misogyny on the part of the opposition that's running against you isn't that new either, so nothing yes-worthy I can discern.

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler-93%-Marginal Yes-Tina Fey has been a media darling and surely eligible for this list A LOT of successive years. I'm inclined to put her through this year because she's been packaged with Amy Poehler who could maker the list on her own and it's appropriate because the two hosted a talk show.

Gabby Giffords-81%-A resounding yes-Gabby Giffords is a humongous news story and deserving hero that could command even more coverage than she's currently getting. If she were on every front page of America every day, I'm not sure I would mind

Seth Meyers-Yes-The great thing about watching SNL stars rise is up in the cultural consciousness is that they're really nobodies when they start out. I'm sure that new cast additions like Tim Robinson, Vanessa Bayer, Bobby Moynihan and Aidy Bryant are among the least-searched names in the entirety of IMDB. I think Meyers is one of the most relevant stand-up comedians, most promising awards show hosts (did you see him at the ESPY's) and most people don't know he's the head writer of SNL

This lent, give up google searches?

Disclaimer: This is more of a brainstorm than something that should be considered a fully-thought out blog post.

As someone who writes content and markets it over the internet, I am an avid student of how people find information in Web 2.0. Most of what I learn, however, disappoints me.
I think the idea of "googling" has always been distressing to me. At first, I didn't like it because it was a somewhat arduous task that didn't get good information back to you. Now that the web search has admittedly improved, it's hard to fall back on that as an excuse for why I don't like googling, leaving me to fall back on other reasons, beyond the traditional "not knowing what you're getting or how reliable it is, along with occasionally still not getting what you're looking for" excuses.

When I was a freshman in college, I learned of the idea of "texts" which, as I understand it (and I might be off), is the idea of getting your body of knowledge from a single source. Simply put, anything on a bibliography is a text. A textbook, an article, etc. More than that texts are people.

Your wise uncle, your professor, your third grade teacher, even a guy you talk with on an also count as texts. In the old days, knowledge was passed on through oral traditions and that's probably part of why yore was so appealling. There probably was some importance to knowledge being part of a social function. Religious people who are passionate about gaining spiritual guidance seek out a clergyman (rabbi, priest, shaman, what have you) or other spiritual teacher. Similarly, people who want to succeed as athletes seek out a coach. I don't know about all people but I recently spent some time with a former opera singer who said she'd go back to the profession if she could find the right vocal coach. Is it possible that the best way to learn for these people is through a one-on-one learning relationship, you have to ask if that's not the best way to go about a lot of things.




When you use that same "text" for everything, all your texts and sources are getting muddled. Even if your google search takes you to site A, B, and C, and you selected Site B, you don't process it as such. If you were to relay how you got the information to someone else, you wouldn't say "I got it from Site B." You'd say "I googled it."

Shouldn't Site B get the credit and deserve to be your source of information next time? Wouldn't it be beneficial for you to return to site B as well?  That's what I do.The internet affords us a lot of opportunities to get acquainted with texts, and I take advantage of all of them. I hardly ever go to google. If I want to know about a TV show's history, I got to TV.com, if I want to know a cast listing, I go to imdb.com, and if I want to know a schedule, I'll go to imdb or tvgen. If I want to know about a newspaper market, I'll go to the Virginia Press Association, MediaBistro, or 50States. These are all just a couple of examples, but the point is I have a fairly good virtual roadmap of the internet for all my needs.


In my opinion (although I'm not really the expert), we don't go the extra mile because googling is a cognitive shortcut. We're shutting off our brains to a proverbial GPS. 

Stand-up comic declares war on the internet!

Chris Gethard is a stand-up comic and comedic actor. He's currently making the rounds of the comedy scene in New York City through stints at the UCB Theater, appearance in internet videos and guest star spots on TV shows.

However, Gethard hasn't caught my attention for his acting. He's caught my attention (and the attention of a few others including Dan O'Brien at Cracked.com this morning) for his curiosity about how internet anonymity brings out the worst in people and his creative attempts to be proactive about it.

One of the commenters on his IMDB page decided to post something really nasty about Gethard and Gethard tracked the commenter down and flew him to New York for an interview on his YouTube channel:



Chris Gethard is a comedian by profession, but in this video, he's not going for humor. He's acting as a social scientist, and perhaps with this video he's creating an artifact of Web 2.0, that seems as valuable to me as any book put out there by 98% of professors who lecture in media, new media, technology and culture, sociology, and the like.

In another similar "sociological experiment" Chris did a comedy routine on CollegeHumor.com's video feed in front of a live audience in which he talked about his experience with commenters on the CollegeHumor.com website. The fact that he performed it in front of a live audience is significant here. Comics like to point out the deficiencies of the world around us so their act often demonstrates how dumb a person is or how dumb a group of people are

In the video, he's making the live audience laugh by pointing out how dumb the CollegeHumor.com commenters are and because the live audience isn't really the target of his jokes, it works comedically. But his larger audience is the people watching his routine through CollegeHumor.com and he's downright attacking them. He goes on to provoke them further at the end of the routine to give them his worst and he'll even go on the message boards themselves and respond to it.

I checked the message board myself and the fact that Chris called them out didn't alter their behavior that much. These people, who might be perfectly civilized adults in real life, knew that this comic was going to read their comments and they still posted terrible things. It's to Chris's credit that he directly showed me how these people really had lost it. It's also to Chris's credit that because of his experiment, I understood how bad it would feel to read all these hurtful comments and how cruel people can be to anyone who gets put involuntarily or voluntarily put in front of any kind of spotlight where they're exposed to strangers. If Chris had a PhD in front of his name, he might be published somewhere for something like this. Who knows?

How much Chris is personally affected or bothered by the problem isn't something I'm sure of but there are some stars who aren't particularly geared towards fame and act rather unusually towards some of its trappings. Some people (3 very very random examples: Kanye West, skier Bode Miller in the 2006 Olympics, Greta Garbo) don't react to media and fame in ways that their press agents would be proud of. They get caught up in what the public at large thinks of them and trying to rebel against it. Chris, in a way is one of those rebels. He's not just answering the media's questions
(even though the media isn't news outlets) about him but daring viewers (like that live audience) to be critical of the media itself.


For example, I specifically remember several years ago, being on an internet message board and discussing on Tina Fey's page whether someone like Tina would read about what we were writing in the IMDB message boards. It seemed inconceivable that even though imdb is the easiest place to look up information about films, that she being famous would use it. She probably has her own version of imdb (and the internet for that matter) and wouldn't ever use the same website as us commoners, and therefore wouldn't ever see any messages we'd be writing about her or her show on the web page.

Ironically, this was parodied in a Saturday Night Live sketch in which Sigourney Weaver is obsessed with what everyone's saying about her on imdb.

This is ridiculous to us because of sheer numbers. It's not that Sigourney Weaver or Tina Fey aren't able to look up comments people have made about them to imdb, but even if they did directly address some of the people who were commenting about them, it would be such a small ripple that most of their fan base will never personally hear from her.

Because of the vast scale of imdb.com with the thousands upon thousands of forums, only a few message boards (usually, the just-released films, ongoing TV shows and main message boards) get any traffic at all. Because Gethard's show business career is very small at this point, only four people have ever bothered visiting Gethard's message board and posting something which doesn't make for very much active discussion, so he's very likely to see it. It would be very easy for commenters to not consider that difference between Tina Fey and Chris Gethard and voice their opinions of both the same way.

The difference between the ordinary person and the famous person used to be much larger, especially with twitter, and I think because Chris Gerhard is currently on the bottom of the rung of fame that he's in a unique position to be at the center of this discussion and I think it's been a good discussion to have so far.

How easy it is to be hated as an internet writer

I recently rewrote one of my lower posts and attached it to create an article:

Over the course of the article, I made about 27 allegations/assumptions/opinions:
1. That Tom Cruise used to be popular
2. That most people attribute the decline of Cruise’s career to Oprah-gate and scientology
3. That Cruise’s Tropic Thunder cameo was a positive step for him
That he got by on being on 4) a winning smile 5) being youthful and 6) energetic for 25 years
7. That today’s audiences might see him differently if they had a reminder that he was talented
8-10. That George Chakiris, Roberto Benigni and Cuba Gooding Jr. are all acceptable examples of “duds”
11-13. That Tom Cruise stood an incredibly good chance at winning in all three of his noms
14. That Tom Cruise’s performance was similar to Voight’s for coming home
15. That Tom Cruise’s performance remains one of Olive Stone’s more realized characters
16-17. That the academy implicitly decided that Marlon Brando and Dustin Hoffman weren’t awarded an Oscar because it was too early in their careers
18. That Tom Cruise’s case fits that mold
19. That Jerry Maguire used Cruise’s manic energy to the fullest and that audiences loved it
20. That Cruise’s winning of prizes before the Oscars (some of which were for best actor in a comedy or musical) meant he stood a good chance at an Oscar
21. That Cruise’s performance propelled Jerry MaGuire to a best picture nomination and that the picture wasn’t worthy on its merits alone
22. That Rush’s role in Shine was Oscar-bait
23. That the ceremony wasn’t as memorable because Cruise didn’t win an Oscar
24. That in the 1999-2000 Oscar season, Cruise was up against a weak field
25. That Cruise wasn’t necessarily the best part of Magnolia
26. That Jude Law wasn’t the best part of his own film
27. That Michael Caine’s Oscar was less about his performance in that single film and more about being a consummate and prolific actor in his old age

I'd say if someone disagrees with just a couple of those points, that's pretty good, but people tend to voice all those disagreements quite often.

How to save the Washington Post or any newspaper for that matter

I have been very interested in media and how to revive the dying industry of newspapers. I do believe newspapers have a tremendous amount to offer over the internet as I wrote here.

I've been reading a couple really good blogs that talk about the issue of how new media is disastrous for old media and such. The first is Andrew Keen who wrote the book Cult of the Amutuer. The second is by Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, who has a lot of good insight into technology.

Nonetheless, I keep reading a lot of articles about how much trouble the Washington Post is in. A lot of these articles are written by writers of the Washington Post themselves commenting on how much peril newspapers are in in their paid sections. People are being laid off multiple times every year and I read columns by editors saying "I'm sorry to go because I accepted the buyout package."

Here's how I recommend it be saved:
1. Don't fire columnists who have built a following. Consider those people insispensable when making layoffs. I liked the "Magazine Reader" for example and I'm not sure if there are other examples I can remember offhand of columnists I was familiar with accepting a buyout and leaving, but that's certainly big. In fact, have your columnists appear in public more (like the Post Hunt) so they can be more recognizable and be personalities that people are invested in (an example of this is Michael Wilbon from PTI)

2. Become non-profit and accept donations or just accept donations period. You've pleaded your case with your readers quite gallantly in the newspaper with this string of articles about how newspapers are dying. I think people are starting to get the point that at 75 cents an issue and pretty much all of it online for free, that the newspaper can't keep running as is and plenty of people are invested in saving it. If you haven't made the point, keep making the point more. Let the public know that if they like this institution they'll have to support it.

Or better yet....
3. Find things for them to pay for and remind them that your purchase helps keep the paper alive. Only allow online discussions for subscribers and if they're not subscribing, charge for them: ESPN the magazine does it and it works. Just as people will pay for concerts because they wish to see and interact with artists, do the same thing. Charge an admission fee for the Post Race. Charge to get a file out of the archives. There are plenty of newspapers like the Virginian-Pilot in Eastern Virginia have done this. Economic incentive plus a little bit of the feeling that you're making that purchase for altruistic reasons is a good combo.

4. Be unapologetic when you are making money. A dinner recently got cancelled that would have connected lobbyists to power players in Washington. I might be naive (and this is something I will admit, I'm entirely uneducated on and wouldn't mind being corrected on if I'm wrong) but as far as unethical things go, that wasn't so bad. I think that your critics just have to realize you're on life support.

5. Lobby for stimulus money. Newspapers are one of THE most-troubled and necessary industries today and if cars and banks can get the stimulus money, why can't you?

In my view...

An essay of mine against wikipedia

Sometimes it can be frustrating, as one of the many people not in charge of the world, to see society straying down the path of disaster and no one doing anything about it. This is why the next best thing I can hope for is when someone who has more sway than me, in terms of the way the world works, is advocating on my behalf to prevent that chaos. Case in point: I have a weary feeling that the sudden advent of wikipedia could lead to some very negative consequences which is why I’ve been very relieved to have come across the work of Andrew Keen who has published the book “The Cult of the Amateur” in which he discusses the negative consequences of web 2.0.

Andrew Keen recently debated Jimmy Wales, the founder of wikipedia, at Oxford University. Keen said his primary concern was whether knowledge should be given away for free: “We’d all love knowledge to be given away for free just like food or drink or this building to be free, but the realities of this economic system is nothing is free.”

His biggest critique of the web 2.0 is, “It’s premised on the idea that there is some virtue of giving away one’s intellectual labor without monetary reward.” In the process, Wikipedia is disintermediating the creative class and forcing the intelligent minds of society to give away their knowledge for free.Wales responded to this by saying that this is untrue because the creative class is growing and that previous concerns with open source software haven’t held true. On the latter point, the dissemination of scientifically specific data that the average layman can’t understand is much different from giving away things in newspapers. In terms of whether the creative class growing or shrinking, the prevalent example cited by the moderator was how newspapers are cutting their staffs and Wales responds by saying that media is changing but he’s confident it’s just a matter of restructuring along new models. I personally don’t think his “confidence” is enough to put down the red flag just yet. In response to a question by an audience member, Keen said that he didn’t believe the creative industry is growing. Yes, Google is rapidly hiring people to counteract the balance of people being laid off of newspapers, but the new employees of Google are simply selling advertising so the intelligentsia is being cut off.

Despite the fact that a little of general public today have an insistence that the traditional media are inundated with biases, both parties agree that professional journalists do hold great value in our society. In fact, much of wikipedia’s source list is from newspapers such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Because it derives its credibility from these sources, wikipedia would be substantially weakened by the loss of these newspapers of which wikipedia is ironically playing a part in its demise. “The idea of a world with no professional journalists is a pretty alarming one,” naturally responded Wales, but he admitted he didn’t really have an answer for how to fix that. If the creator of a catalyst for destroying the jobs in a very crucial industry that contributes to the betterment of society (professional journalists) didn’t see the loss of those jobs coming and doesn’t have an answer for it, I would call him an irresponsible inventor.

Andrew notes that the most distressing thing about web 2.0 is that people who can promote the disintermediation of the work of society’s scholars are the ones who stand to profit the most. You tube has made a bundle of money by providing a vehicle for copyrighted material to be destroyed. The number of copyright violations that exist on you tube are rampant and you tube does not make much effort to eliminate them. There is no form of punishment for people who violate copyright laws on you tube nor is there an easy procedure for anyone to remove a copyright for anyone who doesn’t own it.

At the same time, for wikipedia to be a non-profit organization does far more harm than good. The word “non-profit” has come to denote a force of good in the world, and it is admirable that wikipedia does not wish to make excessive money, but by refusing to ignore the economic realities of the situation and people affected, he is actively keeping money from people who play the most vital roles in our economy. The biggest and most important industry today has switched from manufacturing and service industries to information industries and these are the people at stake. To have a healthy web 2.0 society in which our scholars, artists, and other creative minds are encouraged to continue producing their products, they have to be financially rewarded and compensated.When asked why he doesn’t reward his contributors, Wales said that it’s for the same reason craigslist.org doesn’t want to make or distribute money off his site: Because the users of his site don’t want him too. This is not an accurate representation of what all the stakeholders of his site want or of the people being affected. There surely are scholars and experts in fields who would want to be paid for their work but are unable to demand payment because people are willing to do it for free. As it exists in actual economic situations outside the internet, the market is disrupted in this case.

There are also sources who get cited in wikipedia who are stakeholders as well, and they deserve to have a say in among other things: Whether people get paid for their content, whether people remain anonymous, how actively and quickly copyright violations are removed. When the moderator asked whether Wales partner up with the New York Times or other media outlets, Wales responded that that would be like the Red Cross partnering up with a for-profit hospital. For that analogy to reflect wikipedia’s relation to the New York Times, The Red Cross would have to be taking supplies from a for-profit hospital, because wikipedia hinders the effectiveness of the New York Times and other print media and the benefits that wikipedia gets from the New York Times are a one-way street.

To fix this, Keen recommends we as the general public have to recognize the value of the media. Keen says, “The truth is that the internet is a mirror…The problem with the internet is that it reflects ourselves, it reflects our impatience, our narcissism, our laziness, and we have to be willing either to pay for the physical newspaper or we have to be willing to put up with going on web sites and putting up with advertising.” “If we think that newspapers have no right to make a profit,” than those are the consequences we face. The media does have public value, and whether we use the media in ways that do or don’t reward them, we are all increasingly dependent on a threatened institution.

I think the wikipedia community really needs to address some of these issues. It's important to not give out too much of their source material online.