Posted on 11/20/2007 7:48:36 AM PST by abb
snip
Their streamlined glass-and-steel forms proclaimed a faith in machine-age efficiency and an open, honest, democratic society.
Newspaper journalism, too, is part of that history. Transparency, independence, the free flow of information, moral clarity, objective truth — these notions took hold and flourished in the last century at papers like The Times. To many this idealism reached its pinnacle in the period stretching from the civil rights movement to the Vietnam War to Watergate, when journalists grew accustomed to speaking truth to power, and the public could still accept reporters as impartial observers.
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Maybe this accounts for the tower’s slight whiff of melancholy.
snip
Journalism, too, has moved on. Reality television, anonymous bloggers, the threat of ideologically driven global media enterprises — such forces have undermined newspapers’ traditional mission. Even as journalists at The Times adjust to their new home, they worry about the future. As advertising inches decline, the paper is literally shrinking; its page width was reduced in August. And some doubt that newspapers will even exist in print form a generation from now.
Depending on your point of view, the Times Building can thus be read as a poignant expression of nostalgia or a reassertion of the paper’s highest values as it faces an uncertain future. Or, more likely, a bit of both.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
ping
Or not.
Except that those notions didn't flourish at the Times.
You're all just Pinch's bitches.
Of course the best part of the story (which is not written here) is that Pinch pi$$ed away many millions of dollars of the company’s scarce capital on a white elephant. And that mistake will hasten their demise...
Martin, my favorite piece of overwrought crap in the article is the following:
“Few of today’s most influential architects buy into straightforward notions of purity or openness. Having witnessed an older generation’s mostly futile quest to effect social change through architecture, they opt for the next best thing: to expose, through their work, the psychic tensions and complexities that their elders sublimated. By bringing warring forces to the surface, they reason, a building will present a franker reading of contemporary life.”
Did MoDo write this? It’s silly enough to be her.
Which mission? The mission of being an ideologically driven local media enterprise?
And some doubt that newspapers will even exist in print form a generation from now.
Paper is a medium. The information is the important part. Whether it is delivered on paper or electronically matters as much as whether the paper comes from pine wood or spruce wood.
Right now paper has the advantage of having a greater viewing area right in front of you and ease of markup and book marking interesting parts. Paper is also better in that it is lighter than the equipment to read the electronic version and doesn't require power (other than light) where it is read. Also, it has some permanence while the electronic version can be secretly changed or eliminated.
Electronic is better for searching and provided "tiered" information where if the top level of the article provides a partial quote from the President, I could click on it to get the full quote in context with audio and video. I expect that all of paper's advantages over electronics will be overtaken by a better user interface, longer life batteries and lighter electronics. At that point paper's only social inertial will carry any paper news sales.
Oh, look! Nicolai has a thesaurus.
It is so very heartening to see the fall of the MSM - especially the NYT. The paper is a joke...even the science section is becoming more and more like “(Un)Scientific American”.
I get my news from trusted blog sites. They are staffed by much more intelligent writers - writers who will quickly be corrected by the readers should “Clintonitis” be detected.
Mausoleum, crypt, burial chamber, tomb, catacomb...
Sepulcher, burial vault, grave, resting place, burial place...
Such purple prose just to say that their part in promoting the liberal wet dream of worldwide socialism is at an end. Blah blah blah...
Scramble this guy's name with about twenty consonants, and you could come up with about five servicable names.
The author is an architect critic! These people are literally ivory tower types who barely concern themselves with the “unwashed masses.”
The new place is rather nice looking.
It is my hope it is left largely unused within a decade.
Brings a tear to the eye, doesn't it?
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