Washington Post
“Cantankerous old fud” Gene Weingarten tells his readers that “near as I can tell, the main message given to the conferees [at the recent Online News Association convention] was that, journalistically, to attract reader eyeballs, you want to publish more pictures of bacon taped to cats. Give readers what they want, whatever it is.” He drew that conclusion after reading that one of the event’s speakers was Cheezburger Network founder Ben Huh, who runs photos of readers’ cats.
When this column is published, young journalists will once again call me a cantankerous old fud and allege that I am irresponsibly criticizing a brave new world I don’t really understand. Mostly, they’ll contend I am being shallow and superficial and shabby with the facts. I’m pretty sure they will do this without any sense of irony.
Weingarten was right about the name-calling:
His colleague, Alexandra Petri, was one of the first to respond and call him a COF. “What Gene is missing is that Old Journalism thrived only under the expensive delusion that people actually wanted Real News about Important Issues,” she writes.
ONA speaker Ben Huh followed: “What’s killing newspapers isn’t the lack of new ideas, it’s people who obstruct the change that’s required to survive. Well, that and the lack of LOLcats in the Washington Post.”
ONA executive director Jane McDonnell pointed out: “Ben Huh was actually our Friday night networking speaker, providing some comic relief, yes, but also giving the crowd some painless lessons on how to build sites that actually make money — no LOLcats in sight.”
EARLIER FROM WEINGARTEN
* J-schools are urging students to market themselves like Cheez-Doodles
* Weingarten smokes a little pot to get a source to trust him
* Weingarten says hooray to fisticuffs among colorful newsroom characters
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