Cedar Mill Communications

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Tablets like what Steve Jobs and Apple just introduced have long been forecast in science fiction, so you just knew that sooner or later devices like this would become reality. 

Steve Jobs with his new pad.

For example, in Arthur C. Clarke’s 1968 novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, Clarke describes something called a “Newspad” that Heywood Floyd, “plugs into the ship’s information circuit and scans the latest reports from Earth. One by one he would conjure up the world’s major electronic papers; he knew the codes of the more important ones by heart, and had no need to consult the list on the back of his pad. Switching to the display unit’s short-term memory, he would hold the front page while he quickly searched the headlines and noted the items that interested him.”

While there will be little need to know codes by heart, Clarke’s vision of getting electronic papers on a pad-like device is finally here.  To be sure the iPad is likely far from perfect, I fully expect that it will inevitably become more refined and in the process move us much further to full electronic delivery of premier content – much of which is currently paper-based. 

Sure you can get content on either a smartphone or a laptop, but neither is ideal. The smartphone is just too small and the laptop is too clumsy. I just don’t find myself sitting at breakfast surfing news on my laptop, or trying to peer into a tiny screen on the BlackBerry. 

Instead I get volumes of newspaper – big piles of it that inevitably end up being recycled.  Speaking of which, the environmental impact of all that paper is not good. Paper consumes large amounts of water and energy, levels forests, and requires many gallons of fuel to get it to my doorstep. Electronic delivery has almost zero impact in comparison.

I can, however, imagine using the iPad as my daily news feed. What’s more there’s economic justification simply on the basis of replacing paid-for printed content I currently consume.  While I expect to still pay for the electronic content, the price will go down significantly.  Note that some of the publications have yet to adopt eReader technology like what the NY Times currently offers, but publishers that expect to survive will offer similar technology. Based on my calculations, I figure I could save $652 per year, easily justifying a $499 iPad.

Beyond lowering costs, the iPad will deliver a much improved experience.  Publishers will be able to blend video and printed words. Instead of a few photos, I will be able to see the entire sequence if I so desire. I’ll also be able to look up related information, or make comments. Basically it’s everything we love about the Web, but in a nice magazine-like format.  When I’m travelling, all I’ll need to pack is my iPad and a cell phone. No longer will I need a few magazines, a couple of books, media player, GPS, or even a laptop. And, of course, there will be countless numbers of cool apps.

Sounds like science fiction? Not anymore.

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In my last post, Real Journalism, I pointed out the benefit of educating and paying people to investigate and write about our world. How else will we know about abuses of power or inequality or any number of societal ills? But as a writer, if I’m given a choice between tackling a paying job that comes in or writing a blog about a subject that rankles me, I’ll take the paying one. The bills can’t be paid on ire after all.

I still stand by that argument. But I’ve learned that the blogosphere does have the power to help traditional media effect change. The most recent evidence is a story of how a New York City college student went up against two large retail chains over an apparent policy to destroy unworn clothing they couldn’t sell. Cynthia Magnus found garbage bags of slashed clothing outside a NYC H&M store along with bags of clothing bearing Wal-Mart tags that had been punched full of holes. Rather than donate the clothing, the retailers left them fit only for the garbage dump. H&M’s action was especially egregious because the garbage bags of destroyed clothing were just around the corner from a collection point from New York Cares, a charity that collects coats for the needy.

I heard the story as a quick news blurb on KINK, the station my alarm is set to. I woke up thinking geez, what a crappy thing to do in a city with so many poor people – and such cold weather.

Turns out the story didn’t spring from a blog as KINK reported, but from the New York Times. Magnus had tried unsuccessfully to contact H&M. When they wouldn’t give her the time of day, she turned to the Times. Two days after the story ran H&M issued a promise to donate, not destroy unsold clothing. I searched but didn’t find out what happened with Wal-Mart. The story got picked up by AP and ran about everywhere. Twitter even got in on the action, as one blogger claimed the flurry of tweets led H&M to straighten up. What this says to me is that reporters and bloggers and people who twitter (twitterers?) can have a synergy that leads to action, in this case for cold, poor New Yorkers.

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We were playing Loaded Questions following a delicious Christmas dinner with our Olympia, Wash., relatives Ann, Eric and Faye and Eric’s girlfriend Julie. One question we drew was to name a profession that would be extinct in 10 years. Two of the group guessed journalism-related jobs: paper delivery and journalists in general. How could I argue with our own Oregonian shrinking like the Wicked Witch of the East before our very eyes and other newspapers laying off reporters, photographers, even editors. As a copyeditor who’s worked at several newspapers and magazines, I feel sometimes like a horseshoer watching horseless carriages taking over the road.

Here’s an argument for keeping the journalism profession alive. I’m talking about the kind of journalism I went to school to learn and get a degree in, not the kind of stuff we call New Media. My argument goes like this: Someone with writing and reporting skills gets paid to use them for the ferreting out of information vital to us all. I’m sitting here trying to cook dinner, do laundry and walk the dogs, feeling the need to write, but hey, if a paying job comes in I’ll drop the blog post-haste.

When I worked at the News Tribune (sorry, no link; it’s been dead for years) or the Press-Enterprise or the Portland Tribune those folks got my undivided attention because they helped pay the bills. Don’t get me wrong, I admire writers and editors who will work for free. In fact, I advise fresh-out-of-J-school grads to do just that: give away their writing by working gratis for some publication — any publication that will give them clips. But that can’t go for long. Nor should it. I was reminded recently about why we desperately need paid, skilled journalists.

The Oregonian ran an investigative piece on Dec. 30 on the sale of green energy tax incentives to corporations, among them Wal-Mart, Costco and U.S. Bank, that effectively allowed these companies to avoid paying millions of dollars in state taxes — and here’s the clincher — without actually doing anything green. Turns out these tax incentives can be bought and sold just like derivitives — but at a much better rate of return.

‘Course we Oregonians lose the tax income, but that’s business, right?
I’d never have known about that if the Oregonian wasn’t around. Good job Harry Esteve.

Example number two: the graph from the Washington Post that ran on A4 of the same edition showing every U.S. senator’s vote on the health care reform bill along with how much money each has gotten from health care lobbyists and the percentage of uninsured in their states. How can senators Hutchison and Cornyn sleep at night knowing they voted against reform when their state, Texas, has the highest rate of uninsured in the nation? And John McCain (who can Twitter) pulled in more than $9 million in lobby geld voted lock-step with the other pull-up-the-ladder Republicans. His state only has 19% uninsured. I’m sure those folks will understand his vote, right? Interestingly John Kerry got more than $8 million from health care groups but he voted for reform.

I guess you can see where my loyalties lie. Given a choice between blogging and newspapers, I’ll take real journalism any day — every day, pitched on my driveway!

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