Another Sunday, another episode of OTM. This week’s show opens on kind of a scary note with a story about the Bush administration’s monitoring communications of average Americans (especially, it seems, average Americans who happen to be journalists). We all kind of figured it was going on, but former National Security Analyst Russell Tice confirms it. And I’m so thankful to have a president that doesn’t scare the living crap out of me.
Next up, Slate’s Fred Kaplan is on to talk about the National Archive’s issues with archiving anything made since the dawn of Microsoft Word. Bob begins the interview by announcing a little awkwardly that Fred is Brooke’s husband. He sounds like my friend Steven, who announced mid-guitar heroism that he felt weird being alone in his apartment with me since I’m about to get married. It’s kind of sweet.
The next story is one of my favorite things about this week’s episode. For a very long time, OTM (ok, mostly it’s Bob) have been talking about the slow, agonizing death of print media. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Brian Tierney is on to talk about how the media only reports the bad news.
Tierney makes some excellent points. More people are exposed to quality journalism than ever before thanks to the internet, and papers’ readership isn’t declining as rapidly as everyone seems to think it is. However, Tierney isn’t sure that they can pay the bills with internet advertising alone after print really does go away. He proposes a paid online subscription model, which is an idea that I’ve heard echoed in a few places this week. After getting content for free, I’m not sure how people would react to being asked to pay for it. Papers would almost have to offer two levels of their sites – a basic free version and a souped-up paid one.
But this is a brave new world we live in, one where people carry the internet in their pockets and billboards stare back at you. Apparently, these billboards can tell your gender by scanning your face. Bob seems incredulous – if Fabio walks by, Bob says, he will most likely be counted as a woman because of his flowing locks, full lips and cliff-like cheeckbones. Bob asks Paolo Prandoni, the guy who develops these billboards, which advertising is evil. Apparently, evil takes the form of ads that target kids.
Evil also takes the form of being inside on such a gorgeous day. Until next week, you’ve got stories on Iran, spies and legal notices to keep you busy.
This recap was written by Kerry, who really wishes it could be summer already and edited by Matthew, who now knows better than to complain when it’s 80 degrees.
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