My goof. I meant Tierney, but wrote Friedman by mistake. Tierney has written three space-related columns in the past year, and mentioned NASA in a fourth.

Actually, John Tierney is also interested and supportive of alt-space. Unfortunately, he’s locked up behind the Times Select firewall now, so he (and thankfully, Dowd, Krugman, etc.) is now much less influential than he could be, because his and the others’ readership (at least on line, along with links) has dramatically declined.

Huh? What exactly am I wrong about? My comment that newspapers “still have influence”? My primary argument was that newspaper _editorials_ have little or no influence at all, and never really had much to begin with. If you believe otherwise, then how about some data? Can you provide examples where newspaper editorials affected public policy decisions?

That is separate from the issue of their importance reporting news. I did not bash newspapers in general. In fact, I have a far higher regard for them than I do for blogs, which for the most part consist of “content” that they get from somewhere else (“Hey everybody, here’s a link to something I found interesting!”) and opinion that they generate internally–jerks with websites describes 99% of blogs. Of course, you can skip the opinion and use them primarily as a kind of tear-sheet for information that you don’t have time to search for on your own. But rarely are they going to provide real content. Maybe some informed _analysis_, but not actual information.

And we should also define “the web” in proper context. I happen to read NY Times articles via the web. The Post website too (although I subscribe, because I enjoy reading a paper newspaper on the subway into work). If you mean blogs vs. newspapers, then we are in agreement here. It is only newspapers that have the resources to actually pay people to go and research a story, whether that means sending them to Burkina Faso to report on the magnesium industry, or to the courthouse to report on the police dockett.

But that’s not really a discussion I’m all that interested in.

— Donald

Actually, it’s “Dwayne,” like “John Wayne,” except with no “John” and an extra “D.”

“Thanks for doing the background search on recent NY Times editorials.”

Hey, “substance” and “research” are my middle names. (Actually not. My middle name is “Tiberius.”) These comment sections–like most blogs–tend to be 99% unsupported opinion, so my goal is to provide the 1% of actual content.

“It seems that the Times has been more receptive to the exploration initiative than I remembered. I stand (sit?) corrected. However, the idea that there is an opening in the generally broad opposition to manned space flight and exploration by major papers and other media outlets remains valid and should be exploited for our benefit.”

[Here’s where I inject more opinion than facts.] I’m not sure that this really matters. Newspapers in general have less influence than they historically possessed. They still have influence (witness the Washington Post cracking open the Jack Abramoff scandal, which probably would not have gone as far as it did if the Post wasn’t airing his very dirty laundry in public). And newspaper editorial pages tend to be irrelevant to political debate. There is an old reporters’ joke about editorials that is too scatalogical to post here, but the punchline is that it makes the editors feel good and nobody notices.

A previous post did raise the interesting question about whether NY Times editorials influence the editorials of other newspapers. I don’t know if that is true. And it is possible that if there has been a shift in NY Times editorials on space, it has been too subtle for other editorial boards to notice. It is clear, however, that the NY Times has a substantial influence on what stories other newspapers and television news will cover–if a story first appears in the Times on Monday, you will see it in other newspapers on Tuesday. (Note how often your own local TV news will report stories that they essentially get out of the local newspaper. It is clear that print media has often done much of the legwork for broadcast media.)

In the past two years the Times has also run a number of columns by Thomas Friedman on space issues. A quick scan of these indicates that Friedman is somewhat critical of NASA and has embraced the alt-space philosophy. However, he also seems to be rather poorly-informed. He embraces some of the wackier ideas and people in the pro-space movement. If you wanted to have some influence on the NY Times’ opinion pages approach to space, it might be worthwhile to try and influence Friedman.

I previously noted that many newspaper editorials seem to lack the courage of their convictions–they bash shuttle, ISS and the lunar plans, but then do not call for an end to human spaceflight. It is worth noting that in my media search, I came across a number of letters to the editor at the Times that _did_ close that circle and called for an immediate end to human spaceflight. Usually the writer also called for spending the money saved on social programs.

Thanks for doing the background search on recent NY Times editorials. It seems that the Times has been more receptive to the exploration initiative than I remembered. I stand (sit?) corrected. However, the idea that there is an opening in the generally broad opposition to manned space flight and exploration by major papers and other media outlets remains valid and should be exploited for our benefit. A proactive media plan by groups individuals that support manned space exploration, regardless of the technical details, is the way to go forward on this. I would love to get the text of the other editorials, if you can send them to me.

Bob

“Further investigation and experimentation have confirmed the findings of Isaac Newton in the 17th century and it is now definitely established that a rocket can function in a vacuum as well as in an atmosphere. The Times regrets the error.”

Thomas Lee Elifritz
http://cosmic.lifeform.org

Or at odds with their preconceptions of their customers’ preconceptions?