Ashes, Snow, and Ink

I have received some email in response to my criticism of the New York Times the other day. I do feel I could have been more explicit. One reader noted that the site about Gregory Colbert's work, Ashes and Snow, offers no decent images for us to download. He wrote:

Here's what I wrote back, with a few minor changes in wording:

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In some ways, you sound like me - I share your objection to the manipulations of intellectual property.

I wonder if you feel one can separate the issue of taste from that of property. I.e.: You may not like the Colbert site, or how it's put together. I liked the effect of the motion and sound. I agree, it does not share images, and that is a flaw, but then, perhaps the site creator does not "own" the images?

One might want to know whether the restraint on decent quality images was dictated by Colbert, or was a decision of the web designer, or a matter imposed by considerations of the show...it all gets a bit complicated - he doesn't have his own site, so I can only speculate.

I suppose the point is, the Colbert site gives me some inkling of what he's about, which is all it purports to do.

My beef with the Times has a lengthy history. This is one small instance of something larger going on with the paper, and with giant print operations more generally. They purport to bring news, but, when handed on a platter the ability to bring it better, more vividly, with links to primary sources, what do they do? Reproduce their print artifact, complete with all its inherent limitations. And at the Times, if you wish to read it after seven days, it will cost you.

I used to work for the company. Perhaps my view of the problem as systemic is colored by my experience. Let's just say, I could have been more clear about why the failure of the Times seems to me more massive than the failure of the site about Colbert. What I see is, the Times' site defeats its own reason for being. It is an ad-driven mechanism contrived to realize practically none of the Net's potential. I have pointed to this problem in many forums and have yet to hear a serious counterargument. It's kind of like if, after the invention of the telegraph, the Times had continued to wait for snailmailed reports from its foreign correspondents. (I don't think it was that stupid (but then...)...).

Or like if, after the abolition of slavery, the Times continued to regard blacks as inferior folk who need not complain about being lynched. Of course, according to some people (see Mindich's Just the Facts, for example) this is precisely what Times editorial writers did until at least into the 1890s…

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tom

tom@urbanrubbish.com

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