There are a couple of things I’ve noticed that seem to have become obligatory in all newspapers these days which annoy me to lesser or greater extents.
1) Just about every newspaper album review these days ends with a “Download” suggestion. I know we live in a download culture, and to a lesser or greater extent, that’s the way we now consumer music. But, albums can ordinarily be thought of as a single body of work. That’s why musicians spend ages deciding which tracks should go on an album, and what order those tracks should go in. So when a new album comes out, surely you’re expected to listen to the whole thing. Indeed, when, say, Franz Ferdinand released their latest offering, did anyone just download a couple of select tracks and not the whole thing? I’ve no problem with people downloading singles, but that’s a different thing. Likewise, I’d expect an album review to point me towards what, in the reviewer’s mind, were the stronger songs. But I don’t expect to just buy those bits. You wouldn’t say, “this recording of Beethoven’s ninth is great, but you only really need to download the first movement.” To me, an album is an all or nothing deal, unless, at a later date, you’re looking for one specific song.
2) “Bloggers” comments in newspapers. Since The Guardian’s relaunch a few weeks ago, they’ve introduced a regular “Today On The Web” feature. For example, today it’s the Hamas victory. I note that out of the six extracts printed, four come from blogspot.com domains (the other two came from larger sites that one would expect to find comments from). My only problem with this is that the compiler seems to be relying on Google’s Blogsearch a little too much to find his websites. More problematically, perhaps, are the Blogger’s Views in The Independent on Sunday yesterday. Whoever compiled these comments seems to really be a would-be editor of Letters to the Editor. Each comment is not accompanied by the website, as they are with The Guardian, but instead have a name and town attached. Maybe the comments were solicited, or maybe permission was granted by each writer, but surely, if these comments came from a blog, including the website’s URL is to be expected? And do you normally note the hometown of a blogger? I did have a bit of a look around, but I couldn’t find out where these comments originated. In summary, I suppose I have a couple of problems: search widely for blogs you include, and properly note where the comments originated.
[UPDATE] “Isn’t it ironic” someone once sang. It’s something of a coincidence that having written these words yesterday, I find some other things I’ve said being printed in the Letters and blogs section of today’s Technology Guardian.