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Print News Fading, Still Source of Much News
CNet's Dan Farber took a look, not only at the popular news of how print media is dying a slow death, but also what contribution to the news print journalists are still making. According to research quoted, while the physical publications are quickly becoming a thing of the past much of the news that makes its way into circulation via blogs and other means still originates from the hard work of those print journalists. (We discussed a similar perspective on the news a week back.) "While the Internet is growing as the place where people go for news, the revenue simply isn't catching up fast enough. The less obvious part of the Internet overtaking newspapers as the main source for national and international news is that much of the seed content--the original reporting that breaks national and international news and is subsequently refactored by legions of bloggers--comes from the reporters and editors working at the financially strapped newspapers and national and local television outlets. [...] As the financial pressures mount--the outlook for 2009 is dismal--and the cost cutting continues, we can only hope that the original news reporting by top-flight journalists is not a major casualty."
The quick and the easy = AP, Reuters
The long and difficult = Local Reportage
When the metro newspapers finally figure out that a lot of folks actually like non-national stories again, they may be able to save themselves. Uniqueness and specialization are the drivers of everything online. Just running AP feeds will NOT bring in quality revenue.
God: When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
That's the seed, I guess. However, the story is in the blogosphere (ugh) refuting their biased (and wrong) stories with facts.
Last week, the New York Times published a front page, in depth, story blaming the mortgage meltdown on ... (drumroll!) George Bush. Now, 10 minutes of research would reveal it was due to 1) the Bush admihistration 2) the Clinton administration 3) Congress 4) The federal reserve 5) Mortgage/banking companies 6) deadbeat lendees. Yet the New York Times ignores 5 of the parties and calls it news.
Good riddance.
"we can only hope that the original news reporting by top-flight journalists is not a major casualty"
Is this the Onion or something? The above statement is a joke, right? Maybe part of the reason print media is taking such a downturn is both the internet AND the inability of many of the "top-flight journalists" to do anything that remotely resembles objective reporting. The internet is too accessible, cheap, and more or less admits its bias. Journalists - particularly those at the top - seem to believe that their training and expertise and degrees somehow give them license to disguise their personal beliefs and views as objective reporting.
Or, as Sledge Hammer said when asked, "Don't you read the newspapers?"
"No ma'am, I prefer to get my information from reliable sources, like rumor, and small children."
This issue scares me. We need more, not fewer, journalists to watch over our government and businesses.
Hopefully, people will eventually realize that one way or another, we need to pay for reporting to get done.
My fear is that we won't realize that, and figure out a way to pay for it, until too late. That is, until legions of seasoned investigative journalists have left for greener pastures, and many good journalism schools have been shut down.
If the Journalistic standards of 'USA Today' are anything more than at 'Comic Levels' then I'll eat my Austrailian bush hat.
I Sat next to someone of a flight from Sydney to LA. He spent the whole flight reading a 4 day old copy of USA Today.... I read a complete Harry Potter novel on the same flight. It is nothing more than a joke. Real newspapers carry real stories thoroughly investigated by their own journos. Not picked up and printed pretty well verbatum from the wire services.
In the past, qwe have relied on Newsprint Journos to break major stories. Think Watergate. Today, the Broadcast media in the US seems to only be concerned with ratings and not truth and investigation. There are very few Media Outlets that can replace the roll that print media once took.
The BBC is one. There was even a leading article in the British print media about how one of their financial reporters was seemingly getting too powereful in breaking lots of stories about Banks going down the toilet etc.
Before people get in, The BBC is not funded by the Government but by a tax/licence directly levied on the people who have a TV in the UK. BBC World Service is howerver funded by the UK Foreign Office. I fear for the role of US Broadcast media in the paperless era. I am pretty sure that News editors will think long and hard about breaking a story they might piss off one of their advertisers/sponsors. This IMHO is indirect sensorship and should be avoided at all costs.
The likes of Rupert Murdoch and his media empire is more of a threat to expression of free speech than any direct attack on the 1st Ammendment. He can just order all of his news outlets not to cover any 'anti Murdoch' stories. With no exposure, they will more than likely die.
The death of print media will be a sad day for freedom of expression in this Country.
I'm posting as an AC as I currently work for a Media Company.
Many bloggers complain that the "MSM" (that is, professional journalists) filter the news, and they want to bypass that filter. But the reality is that blogs are often a second filter on top of the first one. They take the content generated by the professionals (sometimes an article, sometimes some words taken out of context), and the blogger frames it with their own perspective and context.
Why would anyone want some random person adding yet another filter to their news? In large part, I think it's because the bloggers are willing to offer a level of info-tainment that the professionals won't: Uncorroborated rumor, conspiracy theory, unfounded amateur analysis, and outraged or outrageous opinions.
(Of course, there are many good aspects to blogs (here I am reading /.) and there are lousy professionals.)
I for one welcome.
Here in Canada our mainstream newspapers and main news TV programs are all owned by two large corporations, CTVGlobeMedia and CanWestGlobal, whose editorial stance is somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun.
I mean the term democratic socialist media mogul is kind of an oxymoron isn't it.
It will be interesting to see if the blogosphere ends up with any particular bias that is different than what good citizens are pablum-fed in their daily TV news broadcast.
I surely hope so.
Although I am not sure that the move from people all having one spoon-fed opinion to a state of truthy factoid bombardment from all sides leading to a catatonic equal acceptance of or non-committal to any old statement or viewpoint is really a victory.
Crowd chants:
"WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS"
"WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS"
"WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS"
Pathetic squeaky voice in background:
"umm, errr, I'm not."
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?