Slashdot Mirror
Are Newspapers Doomed?
Ponca City, We love you writes "James Surowiecki has an interesting article in the New Yorker that crystalizes the problems facing print newspapers today and explains why we may soon be seeing more major newspapers filing for bankruptcy, as the Tribune Company did last week. 'There's no mystery as to the source of all the trouble: advertising revenue has dried up,' writes Surowiecki, but the 'peculiar fact about the current crisis is that even as big papers have become less profitable they've arguably become more popular,' with the blogosphere piggybacking on traditional journalism's content. Surowiecki imagines many possible futures for newspapers, from becoming foundation-run nonprofits to relying on reader donations to deep-pocketed patrons. 'For a while now, readers have had the best of both worlds: all the benefits of the old, high-profit regime — intensive reporting, experienced editors, and so on — and the low costs of the new one. But that situation can't last. Soon enough, we're going to start getting what we pay for, and we may find out just how little that is.'"
I also work for a newspaper, and I was shown stories from the advent of radio how radio was going to kill newspapers. Then TV was going to kill newspapers. Then the internet was going to kill newspapers. IBM also said computers would give us a paperless office.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
>>>Free speech and freedom of the press were separate things in the Constitution for a reason. One is opinion and one is supposed to preserve the right to objective news
>>>
This is revisionist history. If you actually traveled back to the 1780s, 1790s, and 1810s, you would find all kinds of "unverified opinions" coming out of the presses. Newspapers and pamphlets (like "Common Sense" by Paine) were typically run by a single man, and that man used his press to push his own personal views. There was no objectivity back then.
And why should there be? If I want to publish a newspaper called "Liberty Today" why should I have to present both sides? It's MY paper and MY press. I should be able to decide what will and will not be published with MY dollars.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
I don't think we need to look much further than the most recent Iraq war to see how dangerous the current system is. All of our major media outlets are owned by very large corporations, many with defense interests. The press has always curried the favor of the deep pocket interests of the day. It's very instructive to look back at old press clippings on topics where we today know what the facts were ("Was the war a bad idea?" "Was this person corrupt?" "Will this harmless additive kill us?") and see how calm, certain, and forthright the pressmen were in their defense of the special interest. They have the air of the level-headed man of reason, putting our concerns to rest. Of course, they were dead fucking wrong but hey, we're all human, right?
It's true that the current blog model uses press articles and news reports as talking points to begin their own articles, those articles foster discussion threads, etc. If those dry up, more original reporting will need to be done.
But you know what? We've already reached that point with the mainstream media. Investigative journalism is expensive, nobody wants to pay for it. Most news articles these days are just repackaged press releases. Nobody wants to rock the boat and lose their jobs. If Bush says that Iraq has WMD's, if your editor tells you the organization is backing the administration's line because it's good for business, then you're writing about the WMD's. If you won't, there's a thousand other cub reporters just dying to get their shot at the big leagues.
I predict what we'll eventually see is all news sourcing going directly online. There's a lot of capital tied up in a traditional media operation be it the printing presses, distribution chain, and the useless overhead of the parent corporation that demands the news outlet be a profit center. Crossing my fingers, I hope we see a shakeout where traditional media outlets cannot compete with the price model of the net, they fall apart, and what replaces the AP feed is a loose federation of small-time private journalists who have small enough operations they can make their money off of the banner ads. They would peer with other sources to create their own wire feed and we see a more economic business model.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I would argue it was even before that when the 'news' papers ( and TV news ) lost all morality and no longer reported news, but instead lies and agendas.
My realization came in the late 80s after witnessing an 'event' in person and noticing that NOONE had the truth afterwards. Each news outlet twisted the facts to suit their own agenda. But if you were not there you would never know.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Would a government-owned news reporting company be more biased than what we have now?
That really depends on how the government decides to run it. It's simplistic to think that a government will always run things in the worst way possible, even if that is often the case. Ultimately, the question is, "Who is the government afraid of, and what does that person (or those people) want?" If the government is afraid of nobody, you get a propaganda arm. If the government is afraid of the voters, then you get what the voters want, whatever that may be.
Is the BBC worse than CNN or FOX News?
Absolutely not. The BBC is miles ahead of CNN or Fox News or, as far as I can tell, any other mainstream media outlet in the US. The Beeb is known for joyfully and viciously biting the hand that feeds it. The government doesn't like it, and often there are news stories about the gov threatening to pull funding, but I think (I don't live in Britain) that people just wouldn't tolerate it.
I watched the US Election coverage on the BBC (online stream) and the difference was amazing. It was also funny to see the American talking heads taking a beating when they got called on some of their more blatant departures from reality. They simply had no idea what it was like to be interviewed by an intelligent, skeptical person who wasn't prepared to swallow any bullshit. And the BBC people were actually being nice.
Government-paid television doesn't necessarily mean government-controlled television.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
I get two as well. One is a big regional paper and one is a tiny paper covering just two local towns. I read the comics and op/ed page in the big paper. I get nothing more out of it. All the "big" stories are old news because I've read them all online.
I do read the little local paper cover to cover and I always learn something new. I get full police reports ("mary and jimmys son was arrested again"), planning and zoning ("the wilburs got denied a permit to turn their garage into a rental apt...hah!"), legal ads, editorials about local politics, etc. I get way more out of the little one and I couldn't care less if projo.com dies.
correction: free press is so important to democracy that the first amendment to the Constitution specifically includes a clause for its explicit preservation. there's a reason it's called 'freedom of press,' not 'freedom of newspaper.'
i think it would be sad for professional journalism to go the way of the dodo, however i don't see this as likely to happen. we're simply seeing a shift from traditional media--like newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, etc.--to the new media of the web. and frankly, this is a very good thing. over the past few decades the mainstream media has become increasingly consolidated, with most media outlets being controlled by a handful of media conglomerates. this has not only homogenized the media, but it has also put the power of controlling how the public perceives the world into the hands of a select few.
however, with the advent of the web, we're starting to see a resurgence in independent news sources. this along with web search technology has made it easier than ever for individuals to access a wide/diverse range of media sources large and small, allowing people to account for inherent biases in the media and easily perform their own research and fact-checking. whereas newspapers and TV networks rarely publish/broadcast corrections (where people can see them) and admit to their journalistic blunders (such as the whole Saddam Hussein/al-Qaida connection, the non-existent WMDs, the incorrect reporting of election results, etc.), the online media establishment is very keen to challenge the facts reported by other news sources and identify misinformation.
frankly, this notion that print journalism is dead or dying is nothing new. TV/radio was supposed to have killed print journalism a long time ago. when JFK was shot, the newspapers found themselves unable to keep up with the live coverage and constant updates by TV networks. by the time they got a story out, it was already outdated or incorrect because the story had changed. they had to release several editions on the same day, and ended up printing different versions of the same edition with conflicting headlines. but somehow they managed to survive to this day one way or another.
personally, i'd prefer if newspapers became non-profits. by selling ads (usually about 50% of each edition) newspaper publishers become beholden to advertisers. additionally, most traditional media outlets are commercially tied to other corporate industries which have a vested interest in pushing public opinion in a certain direction, creating a very dangerous conflict of interest. for instance, General Electric, a major arms manufacturer, owns NBC, CNBC, MSNBC. this has serious implications on how these media outlets cover (or don't cover) the news.
To quote Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters, "Print is dead."
25 years too early, but it was a very insightful prediction nonetheless. The problem newspapers are facing is that they have historically filled a very specific niche: rapid distribution of largely perishable information, i.e. "news". In the beginning, advances in communication technology only helped newspapers, as they were expensive and only a well funded entity could afford to transmit and receive information over long distances. TV and radio were the first to threaten newspapers, but they actually ended up just exploiting a new market for the most part--- "live" news--- as they're limited to the relatively low-speed communication inherent to the spoken word. Newspapers held an advantage purely in bandwidth. Large quantities of printed information on cheap pulp delivered to your door beat anything TV or radio could offer in sheer volume of information.
Then came the publicly available Internet. Essentially at one stroke, newspapers were pushed to second place in bandwidth. Even a 56Kbps dialup connection could feed the printed word faster and in greater volume than a printing press. Newspapers were doomed, but they didn't know it yet. It took some time for people to catch on. I personally put the tipping point about four years ago. For decades the local newspaper where I live has run an annoying telemarketing division to badger people into getting the local paper. About four years ago, I started answering their entreaties with "no thanks, I already read that paper online for free". These telemarketers, who historically had a scripted response to any excuse, could only respond "oh, OK, thanks for your time"! When a Los Angeles Times telemarketer can't come up with a reason for you to subscribe, the jig is up.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
You are incorrect. There is still solid investigative news journalism going on. You just don't notice it because of the flood of other news from the limited number of places you look (many of which are likely tailored to your interests), and that is the fault of the internet.
Look at the list of "ongoing special projects" on this page describing the investigative journalism at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Each of those stories was an extensive investigation followed by a series of articles. Every one of them went through several reviews to ensure objectivity and defense-ability, because true, print journals publishing libel is easy fodder for lawsuits. In several cases, the subjects of the stories were arrested and charged after the stories were published, based in part on the research.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
In truth, the newspapers are supposed to be the most professional fact gatherers, but the truth is that they're quite biased one way or another, often depending on the overall demeanor of their city of origination. The unfortunate thing is that, like all facets of the media, newspapers are not written for the pure purpose of letting people know about what is going on in the world, but rather, to generate revenue. They want to sell more papers, gain a larger readership, and in turn, charge more for advertisement space. The end result is that editors choose and reporters write stories to, metaphorically speaking, jerk off their audience. There is no integrity.
Learning about brewing beer, by brewing beer.
The big problem with "newspapers" is that, subtract the porn, what you describe is most of what you have left. Local newspapers, anyway.
As a former employee of the now-defunct Knight-Ridder newspaper chain and founder of two alternative weekly newspapers, I have some experience with the actual creation and operation of newspapers as a business. To keep it short, I'll keep it to a few points:
1) For years, the big newspaper chains have owed their problems more to shareholder expectations than to ability to actually make money. It created an environment where increased corporate profit (annually) was the only goal; when you can't charge more for product you decrease labor costs. Instead of investing in what makes their product useful (news), they rely on wire services (the AP) and use local writers for drivel. (See below.) So every year, if they did not make more money than they made the year before, their stoke prices fell. When their stock prices fell, they became more and more vulnerable to corporate takeover. Newspaper companies became more and more gobbled up into larger and larger companies. Large companies could hide the loses of inefficient newspapers with the massive profits of efficient newspapers. But when the company decides to cut employees, it doesn't say, "Paper A, you are a turd and you are going to lose all your employees, and we may shut you down. Paper B, you are the goose that lays the golden egg, and we shall not touch a feather." No, a corporate newspaper company says, "We are going to lay off 10 percent of our workforce," then everyone loses 10 percent, usually by early retirement and seniority, relatively arbitrary and simple methods of reducing workforce that don't involve anyone saying, "you suck; you're fired."
2) Some corporate idiot started asking the public what they wanted. Survey after survey showed that people "don't like bad news." Well, no kidding. But that's what they buy the paper for. It speaks to our primal need to find and avoid dangers. It scares the hell out of us so that we'll remember it, like watching your buddy get jumped by a lion on the plains. You think to yourself, "I better remember that Bob got jumped right there." And when you get back to the tribe, you don't say "Bob and I had a great day finding berries and hunting." You say, "Bob, hunter gatherer, killed in lion attack." But, 95% of the stories in your local newspapers will be about berries. Readers only remember the lions -- the other five percent -- which are bad news. Which makes you wonder why they bother with the 95 percent at all. It is a significant waste of one's resources. Those corporate tools also see statehouse reporting (for example) coverage as redundant, so save the local guy for the really local bourgeois stuff -- bake sales, feel-good ditties about toy runs and the Salvation Army, all the other things that no one complains (or cares) about. So, for years now corporately owned regional and local newspapers have been cutting back and back and back on any coverage that can be pooled. Then they wonder why nobody reads their publication to get the news. Well, because CNN had the same story from the AP posted on the web last night, you jackass. Break some news.
3) Newsprint is just a physical media. For some publications, it is perfect. Anything where you want people who are out and about to pick it up and carry it with you. But it's hella expensive. Not as expensive as people to write, but expensive. Still, the people are the really expensive part. My newspapers had almost all volunteer staffs and the newsprint was about 1/3 of the cost. But 1/3 less is 1/3 less.
Newspapers may die, but written journalism will live on. The shock to everyone is going to be that if you want to get paid for writing news then you are going to have to go out and report some new news all the time. Sorry, people aren't going to by regurgitated stories about Bob's lion attack when they've already heard it.
Local TV news is likewise doomed. Without a local newspaper to crib from, they