Face it: cats have always had a place in news
Why BuzzFeed’s Exploding Watermelon Won’t Destroy Journalism
Next time you hear a journalist criticise an online-only outlet for its cat gifs, bear in mind that the New York Times got there first:
The paper documents a Timesian obsession to all things feline that makes BuzzFeed’s devotion to kitty videos seem restrained. With the exception of the 1950s and the 1960s—which another academic called a period of “high modernism” in which the Times dealt its readers mostly “accurate, ‘unbiased’ information about public affairs”—the paper has doted on cats over the past century.
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Some Good Reading About The Future of News Paid Members Public
Good stuff I’ve read recently, haven’t linked to yet, but don’t have much to add to right now: * The Nichepaper Manifesto [http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/haque/2009/07/the_nichepaper_manifesto.html] – an articulate and well argued guide to how niche publishing might looks going forwards. * Media