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."

Comments

What a sad world

[phorest]

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.

Re:What a sad world

[WindowlessView]

That Indian webcam parrot isn't gonna have to explain himself in the hallways, or over drinks at the local watering hole, thus can be legitimately more objective.

There is a difference between reporting and stenography.

This system adds no value. Even if people had the time to watch the House and Senate in session all day, it would provide very few and only the most superficial and unimportant facts of a story. Some outsourced entity simply summarizing the activity just gives me a condensed version of the unimportant.

Real reporting involves digging up the story below the surface. C-SPAN can show people the southern Republican senators pious "free market" words on a Detroit bailout but without knowing how deeply their hands are in Toyota's, Honda's, etc., pockets you have just consumed so much hot air.