The beginning of the end?
Further to our conversation last night about the future of the Age, one telltale sign that maybe things are beginning to slide is when a paper starts getting its information from Wiki-fucking-pedia. I am referring to the "Did you know" section, a little bit of filler opposite the comics:
The Age, Tuesday July 26.
Did you know: Hey Jude is a song attributed to Paul McCartney and John Lennon (though largely the work of McCartney), originally recorded by the Beatles for the self-titled The Beatles album, but released instead as a single. Despite its unusually long length (seven minutes, 12 seconds), it became the Beatles' best-selling single, although they did produce a trimmed down version for US radio due. (sic) Originally titled Hey Jules, the song was written for Lennon's son Julian by McCartney, at a trying time for the Lennon family when John and his first wife, Cynthia, were getting divorced.
Source: Wikipedia.
Note the Wikipedia house style, complete with the half-finished sentence where someone's cut out something they didn't like from what a previous contributor had written.
Don't get me wrong, I think Wikipedia's great. It's a clever use of the internet, and a good quick reference point, especially for quirky little pop culture things that normal encyclopedias wouldn't cover. But I would never reference it in an essay. I think the crucial difference is, I'm happy go on the internet and read whatever crap some anonymous guy has put up on a site, and take it with a grain of salt, because I know it's a free service. That's what you pay for in the price of a newspaper: not for a guarantee that everything you read will be 100% accurate, but at least the assurance that someone is putting their name to it, and will be held responsible if the information turns out to be wrong. Otherwise, they might a well just have:
Did you know: Dogs can't look up.
Source: Some guy in a pub.
OK, I know I'm picking a bit of an easy target here, and I'm sure they take a bit more care with the news and the editorials than they do with the comics page, but still, I figure, even crap can be done well. It's not even a pithy fact. It's just a bunch of stuff. I reckon if you asked anyone who knows anything about the Beatles (i.e. just about everyone) to tell you what they know about the song Hey Jude, they'd give you pretty much what is written there: that it is a very popular, very long song, which Paul originally wrote as Hey Jules, because blah blah blah.
The Age, Tuesday July 26.
Did you know: Hey Jude is a song attributed to Paul McCartney and John Lennon (though largely the work of McCartney), originally recorded by the Beatles for the self-titled The Beatles album, but released instead as a single. Despite its unusually long length (seven minutes, 12 seconds), it became the Beatles' best-selling single, although they did produce a trimmed down version for US radio due. (sic) Originally titled Hey Jules, the song was written for Lennon's son Julian by McCartney, at a trying time for the Lennon family when John and his first wife, Cynthia, were getting divorced.
Source: Wikipedia.
Note the Wikipedia house style, complete with the half-finished sentence where someone's cut out something they didn't like from what a previous contributor had written.
Don't get me wrong, I think Wikipedia's great. It's a clever use of the internet, and a good quick reference point, especially for quirky little pop culture things that normal encyclopedias wouldn't cover. But I would never reference it in an essay. I think the crucial difference is, I'm happy go on the internet and read whatever crap some anonymous guy has put up on a site, and take it with a grain of salt, because I know it's a free service. That's what you pay for in the price of a newspaper: not for a guarantee that everything you read will be 100% accurate, but at least the assurance that someone is putting their name to it, and will be held responsible if the information turns out to be wrong. Otherwise, they might a well just have:
Did you know: Dogs can't look up.
Source: Some guy in a pub.
OK, I know I'm picking a bit of an easy target here, and I'm sure they take a bit more care with the news and the editorials than they do with the comics page, but still, I figure, even crap can be done well. It's not even a pithy fact. It's just a bunch of stuff. I reckon if you asked anyone who knows anything about the Beatles (i.e. just about everyone) to tell you what they know about the song Hey Jude, they'd give you pretty much what is written there: that it is a very popular, very long song, which Paul originally wrote as Hey Jules, because blah blah blah.
posted by tim at 23:39
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