Here are two small clues that explain the decline of the relevance of Big Media. The New York Times ran a story Monday, “Climate Change May Hurt Asian Economies,” from the Associated Press. The story opens:
Hotter temperatures and higher sea levels could devastate Asian economies, displace millions of people and put millions more at risk from infectious disease, according to a climate change report released Monday.
I have kept the NYT‘s original web-link, which goes not to the report, but to their extensive reporting on climate change. This is a standard for the Times, but relatively useless for savvy online readers who have no difficulty whatsoever finding extensive background on the subject of climate change but are actually interested in the study.
And this brings me to my second complaint. If you read this story, you will have a great deal of difficulty finding the report online, since they never mention who actually sponsored it. The second paragraph states:
Global temperatures will rise by up to 4 degrees by 2030, particularly in the arid regions of northern Pakistan, India and China, predicted the report, conducted by Australia’s main research agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization.
But if you google that agency and go to their web site, www.csiro.au, you will probably be as surprised as I was that there is no mention of any such report.
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
