Danno Posted May 31, 2014 Share Posted May 31, 2014 Thanks Harry for adding a print publisher/editor perspective, and for what it's worth, I fully agree with you. TIM I wholeheartedly endorse both comments, Harry's and Tim's. And, it's not only printed word. I cringe every time I watch the local TV news and I'm subjected to the chirpy young talking heads who butcher syntax, tense, and all manner of other English language standards. No wonder children today are illiterate; there are no longer any good examples in the daily media. The next time I hear, "Me and him went to . . . " Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bernard Kron Posted May 31, 2014 Share Posted May 31, 2014 One of the dominant issues in modern journalism, print or digital, is that of the relationship ,between original journalistic research and public relations. Whether you're consuming broadcast media, on-line print, or paper print, the overwhelming majority of content you will encounter is simply PR material sourced from private and government public relations teams whose sole purpose is the dissemination of publicity representing their point of view and agenda. It has been necessary to invent the phrases "investigative journalist" to "blogger" account for the infrequent exceptions. From the perspective of those who might wish to engage in more rigorous fact gathering and analysis it has the look and feel of highly organized plagiarism. The contemporary phrase for this is "the media echo chamber". The auto magazines have not escaped this. The vast majority of their content does not originate from their editorial staff but through materials supplied by advertisers and trade organizations upon whom these magazines are dependent. It's really not that new. If you go back and read old newspapers and magazines reaching even into the 19th century it becomes quite clear that original content has always been the exception and not the rule. When automobile culture was first booming after WWII things were far less rationalized, categorized and organized than today, so the possibility of encountering excitement and originality was much more likely than today. Whether it's music, literature, the fine arts, television, cinema, etc. etc., the process of rationalization, categorization and homogenization is inevitable. So IMHO I don't think the "24 hour news cycle" and "digital media" are as much causes as they are symptoms of an increasingly mature cultural cycle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tooltas Posted May 31, 2014 Share Posted May 31, 2014 I use to like rod and custom and hot rod now they are so lame. all I read is streetrodder and truckin' mag or mini truck or street truck mag Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted May 31, 2014 Share Posted May 31, 2014 So IMHO I don't think the "24 hour news cycle" and "digital media" are as much causes as they are symptoms of an increasingly mature cultural cycle. Gotta disagree with you on that. Before the widespread use of the internet, as recently as the late '80s-early '90s or so, the "24 hour news cycle" and "digital media" didn't exist. With the emergence of the internet as a true 24/7/365 source of news, television news had to change their ways to keep up with this new source of information available any time that people were tending towards. That's the era when CNN, Fox News Channel, and the rest of the cable news operations were born. The "24 hour news cycle" was television new's response to the internet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danno Posted May 31, 2014 Share Posted May 31, 2014 Gotta disagree with you on that. Before the widespread use of the internet, as recently as the late '80s-early '90s or so, the "24 hour news cycle" and "digital media" didn't exist. With the emergence of the internet as a true 24/7/365 source of news, television news had to change their ways to keep up with this new source of information available any time that people were tending towards. That's the era when CNN, Fox News Channel, and the rest of the cable news operations were born. The "24 hour news cycle" was television new's response to the internet. True! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Hall Posted May 31, 2014 Share Posted May 31, 2014 (edited) Gotta disagree with you on that. Before the widespread use of the internet, as recently as the late '80s-early '90s or so, the "24 hour news cycle" and "digital media" didn't exist. With the emergence of the internet as a true 24/7/365 source of news, television news had to change their ways to keep up with this new source of information available any time that people were tending towards. That's the era when CNN, Fox News Channel, and the rest of the cable news operations were born. The "24 hour news cycle" was television new's response to the internet. Yes...think how different the dissemination of information, news, etc was just 30 years ago than today. When I was a teenager back then, I read a print newspaper, watched the CBS evening news everyday (CNN was just starting to ramp up), went to libraries and bookstores, had print magazine subscriptions that I looked forward to each month. Very different environment from today where I always have a laptop, tablet or smartphone w/ access to the internet and all the news, information, etc of the world a few clicks away... Edited May 31, 2014 by Rob Hall Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bernard Kron Posted May 31, 2014 Share Posted May 31, 2014 Gotta disagree with you on that. Before the widespread use of the internet, as recently as the late '80s-early '90s or so, the "24 hour news cycle" and "digital media" didn't exist. With the emergence of the internet as a true 24/7/365 source of news, television news had to change their ways to keep up with this new source of information available any time that people were tending towards. That's the era when CNN, Fox News Channel, and the rest of the cable news operations were born. The "24 hour news cycle" was television new's response to the internet. I don't disagree on the history of the evolution. But CNN itself, especially as it evolved into it's 30-minute cycle variant, was an acknowledgement of the vast growth in sources. You're right that it created a demand for "more fodder" and allowed the PR channel to thrive as it never had until then. But CNN pre-dates the Internet boom and itself contributed many elements to the Internet news idiom. It's all part of the cultural maturation process. In many ways the Great Depression and WWII constituted a Big Reset empowering a vast emergent middle class, creating a huge market that allowed a rapid evolution of media technologies. We're now on the other end of the cycle, IMHO. Looking forward we're seeing an emerging cost/quality squeeze where content has rapidly been homogenized and the subscription model has escalated costs enormously. For example $1.00 per song where the consumer contributes essentially 100% of the marginal cost of distribution, packaging and storage represents a gigantic increase in the cost of music over the old "record album" model. So media is now vanishingly cheap to warehouse and distribute but very little of the "savings" have in fact been passed on to the consumer. Affordability and media theft are big unresolved issues IMHO. Recently the torrent swarm for S04E06 of Game of Thrones set a new record of 200,000! S04E08 has yet to be stolen as HBO finally cracked down... But the problem was amply demonstrated. $60+ per month for high speed internet is not a solution, especially when added to monthly costs for 4G data distribution, and (in an era where more and more have decided to "pull the plug") cable television subscriptions. I have no doubt the problem will be solved one way or another... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted May 31, 2014 Share Posted May 31, 2014 (edited) I think you're slightly off-base here. Before the advent of digital mass media, the only people involved in "journalism" and in producing books, magazines, etc. were professionals, with training, who did it for a living. Today, literally anyone can publish a digital magazine, book, blog, etc. You no longer need an actual publisher and an actual copy editor and an actual staff and an actual printing plant to produce an e-zine or e-book. Any schmuck in his parent's basement can put out anything digitally, whether it's high quality content or pure garbage, to a worldwide audience of billions. So that's why the increase in krap. It's not that the ""real" journalists no longer exist or have all suddenly lost their abilities... it's the fact they are being overshadowed by all the new electronic media, that by its nature doesn't need anyone but one ill-informed goof to produce and distribute. Agreed 100%. I unfortunately lumped the plethora of "ill-informed goofs" in with "journalists". BUT, there is such a dearth of critical-thinking in today's world that many many people believe anything they read on the web, in magazines, hear on the "news", whatever. Instant experts.The web and electronic media distribution have made CORRECT information much more widely and QUICKLY available than ever before, but human laziness and herd-think have wholeheartedly accepted the veracity of massive amounts of just-plain-wrong-krap (via electronic media) as gospel. And I HAVE encountered a fair amount of WRONG information in printed media, even within my collection of vintage Hot Rod and related mags starting in the late 1940s. Thing is, had I read that krap back then, not having many many years of real-world experience, I would have accepted it as gospel too. But there's just so much MORE krap out there in digital-land today, it's going to be pretty hard for non-experts to distinguish fact from garbage...if anybody even cares what is "fact". Edited May 31, 2014 by Ace-Garageguy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted May 31, 2014 Share Posted May 31, 2014 Interesting, Bill. My take is that in the past, we tended to look upon "the news" with much more reverence. If Walter Cronkite said it was so, by god, it was so, and few Americans thought to question it. And back then, the news media (print, radio and television) were seen as honest and truthful by most Americans, because most Americans looked to the media as being something "special," a group of people more informed and more educated than they themselves were. The media enjoyed a position of trust and respect, for the most part. Today, the proliferation of "news" websites and bloggers and such have blurred the line. Who can we trust? Is TV news telling us the truth? Is Breitbart or the Drudge Report or Salon or Huffington Post telling us the truth? Who knows! There are so many "news" sources now, that it's all become a big blurry mess, where discerning who is telling us the truth and who is selling a partisan line is becoming ever more difficult. The strange fact is, the more news sources we have, the harder it gets to figure out who is telling it straight and who is lying to us. And the really sad part is that there is a huge number of people in this country (generally referred to as the "uninformed voters") who tend to listen only to sources that validate their own beliefs... which serves to divide us even further. Strange times... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brett Barrow Posted May 31, 2014 Share Posted May 31, 2014 The end of the FCC's Fairness Doctrine (aka "equal time") in 1987 and subsequent opposition to attempts to reinstate it certainly led to the polarization we have on TV and talk radio, and by extension, the internet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bernard Kron Posted May 31, 2014 Share Posted May 31, 2014 Interesting, Bill. My take is that in the past, we tended to look upon "the news" with much more reverence. If Walter Cronkite said it was so, by god, it was so, and few Americans thought to question it. And back then, the news media (print, radio and television) were seen as honest and truthful by most Americans, because most Americans looked to the media as being something "special," a group of people more informed and more educated than they themselves were. The media enjoyed a position of trust and respect, for the most part. Today, the proliferation of "news" websites and bloggers and such have blurred the line. Who can we trust? Is TV news telling us the truth? Is Breitbart or the Drudge Report or Salon or Huffington Post telling us the truth? Who knows! There are so many "news" sources now, that it's all become a big blurry mess, where discerning who is telling us the truth and who is selling a partisan line is becoming ever more difficult. The strange fact is, the more news sources we have, the harder it gets to figure out who is telling it straight and who is lying to us. And the really sad part is that there is a huge number of people in this country (generally referred to as the "uninformed voters") who tend to listen only to sources that validate their own beliefs... which serves to divide us even further. Strange times... Two things to observe here. 1) High speed technologies and cheap publishing costs have facilitated the proliferation of "voices" and hence noise. Which leads to point 2... 2) The distance between "If Walter Cronkite said it was so, by god, it was so, and few Americans thought to question it." and "there is a huge number of people in this country ... who tend to listen only to sources that validate their own beliefs" is not all that great. The gap is filled by lack of critical thinking, conservatism (with a small "c"), and conformity. These are qualities that have always been with us. It's just that now the cacophony of voices saying the other side is lying to us is so much louder and omnipresent. In the 50's information was more slowly distributed and easier to ration while today we are drowned in it. The effect is much the same and so is the solution - believe what you already know to be true. And for Pete's sake beware of the dreaded "media bias" (pick your flavor)! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted May 31, 2014 Share Posted May 31, 2014 The end of the FCC's Fairness Doctrine (aka "equal time") in 1987 and subsequent opposition to attempts to reinstate it certainly led to the polarization we have on TV and talk radio, and by extension, the internet. Maybe so. Any media outlet can push any political agenda it wants to push. But each individual media outlet doesn't have to give equal time to the other side. There's no law stopping any media outlet from promoting its own views. And no law mandating which outlet we watch or read or listen to. I think that's called "freedom of speech." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brett Barrow Posted June 1, 2014 Share Posted June 1, 2014 Maybe so. Any media outlet can push any political agenda it wants to push. But each individual media outlet doesn't have to give equal time to the other side. There's no law stopping any media outlet from promoting its own views. And no law mandating which outlet we watch or read or listen to. I think that's called "freedom of speech." True, but I think the idea was to ensure that the media remained just an outlet that individuals could use to broadcast that free speech, not the entity actually making the speech. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted June 1, 2014 Share Posted June 1, 2014 True, but I think the idea was to ensure that the media remained just an outlet that individuals could use to broadcast that free speech, not the entity actually making the speech. The "Fairness Doctrine" was a misguided attempt to "even the playing field" by forcing media outlets to present both sides of controversial topics of public interest. It was implemented back when the number of media outlets was much smaller than today, and getting "on the air" to state your views may have been harder to accomplish. But with the endless number of media outlets we have now (and the fact that with the internet, every single person can literally be their own media outlet), there are plenty of ways to air one's views... and a law that forces you to air opposing views is outdated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
High octane Posted June 1, 2014 Share Posted June 1, 2014 In over 50 years of magazine publishing, the subscription cards STILL say: Please allow 6 to 8 weeks for delivery of first issue. You mean to tell me in this day and age it still takes that long to process a new subscription? Give me a break! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnbuzzed Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 Call me old-fashioned, but I still like to have printed material in my hands. Then again, I can remember having just six TV channels plus one for PBS and UHF was just plain... weird "static interference". I think what bothers me most about magazines (and I cite Hot Rod) here is all the ads for non-automotive products- Pajama Grams, Viagara and Cialis and other male-enlargement products... oh, wait... "Hot Rod". Now I get it !!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonidas Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 I too enjoy actually sitting down with a magazine in hand and reading it cover to cover. I spend all day in front of a computer at work, so the last thing I want to be doing is sitting down in front of a computer/ IPad or whatever at home, reading a magazine. No thanks. I'll keep my paper copies. I have a bunch of magazine subscriptions and yes, some of them aren't the best, but it's not like they're massively expensive to have in print either. $6 a year for Motor Trend and Automobile. $10 a year for Hot Rod, $15 for Muscle Car Review and $18 for Hemmings Muscle (my personal favorite). Personally, I think that's pretty good value for money, especially since I can spend up to 2 hours reading each one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 ...There are so many "news" sources now, that it's all become a big blurry mess, where discerning who is telling us the truth and who is selling a partisan line is becoming ever more difficult. The strange fact is, the more news sources we have, the harder it gets to figure out who is telling it straight and who is lying to us. And the really sad part is that there is a huge number of people in this country (generally referred to as the "uninformed voters") who tend to listen only to sources that validate their own beliefs... which serves to divide us even further. Strange times... And the old joke about "don't muddle my opinions with facts", or however it goes, still holds true. It takes effort, an understanding of how the world and things like basic science and economics work, and CRITICAL THINKING skills to compare all of the information available with reliable primary-source material in order to ferret out the "truth"...all of that is necessary in today's complex world to be REALLY well informed, and to know reality from BS. The really sad part is that it takes more effort, and more having-been-there during high school (even assuming one was taught anything about science, economics, etc. in high school) than most people (at least in my experience of the "average" man-in-the-street) seem willing to put out. Far easier to just accept whatever dogma is regurgitated by whichever line you most closely align with, and to jell with what's actually TRUE. I honestly believe a "basic knowledge" test of some kind should be REQUIRED in order to vote. If you don't understand the issues, what moral right do you have to vote on them ?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 Far easier to just accept whatever dogma is regurgitated by whichever line you most closely align with... That's exactly the problem. Way too many people are not willing to put in the time and effort to try and form an informed opinion based on the facts, not their own preconceived ideas of what's true. They just tend to listen to/read/watch those outlets that support and reinforce their own already formed views, no matter how off-base. And that practice further divides us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobthehobbyguy Posted June 16, 2014 Share Posted June 16, 2014 There's a lot more to this story. It seems source interlink was also a distributer. They had a lock on Walmart. Its seems that Time took exception to a raise in fees and pulled out from source interlink. Source interlink went away as a result of that and there eere 6000 jobs lost including the magazine staff let go. Now there are only two major distributers in North America one in the US and the other in Canada Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tim boyd Posted June 17, 2014 Author Share Posted June 17, 2014 There's a lot more to this story. It seems source interlink was also a distributer. They had a lock on Walmart. Its seems that Time took exception to a raise in fees and pulled out from source interlink. Source interlink went away as a result of that and there eere 6000 jobs lost including the magazine staff let go. Now there are only two major distributers in North America one in the US and the other in Canada There was an excellent story in the Wall Street Journal (I believe it was a week ago Saturday) that had much more details on the Source Interlink Distribution business and its failure. I would imagine it's now at WSJ's website (www.wsj.com) TB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Modelmartin Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 That's exactly the problem. Way too many people are not willing to put in the time and effort to try and form an informed opinion based on the facts, not their own preconceived ideas of what's true. They just tend to listen to/read/watch those outlets that support and reinforce their own already formed views, no matter how off-base. And that practice further divides us. So tell me what the difference is between facts and preconcieved ideas about what is true? Two people with polar opposite views can cherry pick facts to support their views. It happens all the time. people will quote statistics of one sort or another and boom - fact based opinion! Only they forgot the other two or ten or 100 "facts" that don't support their view. We all have our biases and viewpoints. Is everything tainted? Who has the "real" truth? Back to the topic- I also love car magazines. I have a whole wall of them. Hot Rods back to '48, R&C, PHR, Road & Track, Super Stock, and dozens of other titles. I don't see print magazines going away at all. They will likely change a lot just like the model car hobby is changing. It will lose its mass distribution but will remain healthy at a lower circulation. I go to Barnes and Noble and am astonished by the huge variety of car mags and I find the quality to be pretty good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdan delivery Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 Well, I just got my "collectors' editions" of Rod & Custom and Popular HotRodding and, to put it mildly, I am really bummed out. It is a shame that they are going the way of the dinosaurs. I know a lot of you don't care about these, but I use them extensively for detailing and just for good ideas, especially old school type builds and for technical info. There are no replacements for them so I am at a loss what to get instead to try to fill the void. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldnslow Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 (edited) Just got off the phone with the Popular Hot Rodding subscription dept. and found out they are combining Rod & Custom with Street Rodder (just added the extra on to that subscription). Popular Hot Rodding is just going away, they wanted to add that subscription to my Hot Rod, but it's already paid up to 2020 so they're sending me a refund. Edited July 20, 2014 by oldnslow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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