Buzz Bissinger, Arthur C. Clarke, Extinction, and Blogs

Greetings from a location that is not my mom's basement.

Watching Buzz Bissinger read from a paper printout on that Bob Costas special the other night reminded me of something I read in an Arthur C. Clarke novel many years ago. While I'm paraphrasing, the quote went like this: "When one life form encounters a more advanced life form, rarely does the lesser life form survive long after the encounter."

What does this mean? We saw the "old media" and the "new media." Buzz Bissinger and Costas represent an era when people actually read newspapers, when cities often had both a morning and an evening paper, and there were only three networks, no cable TV. I'm sure Bissinger even remembers going down to the Lyric cinema to watch Al Jolson in the first "Talkie" film.

The newspaper industry is doing horribly these days. Due to cable and other options, the big three networks are drawing fewer and fewer ratings. Meanwhile, the Internet is rising as the primary source of news and entertainment for a younger age that only use the newspaper to cover the kitchen table to polish their shoes on.

I also find it amazing that the one person who complained the entire time about the language used on sites like Deadspin, opened up his own profanity-laced tirade. What we saw were the last, angry death gasps of an old media form that for far too long has been complacent and comfortable. Now challenged by competition, instead of adapting or attempting to compete, they complain and sling names. The less advanced life form cannot survive the encounter.


Originally posted by Hack ~hmw