News-Apocalypse: where's the concern?

Published Jan 14 2009, 10:54 AM by Ian Donnis

N4N introduces News-Apocalypse, a continuing series of snapshots (and perhaps more) on the decline of the newspaper industry, what's ahead, and why it matters.

Btw, a ProJo source called me yesterday, confident in the belief that J+W had bought the Journal Building and its related properties. Lisa Pelosi, speaking for J+W, says it ain't so.

From McGuire on Media, written by Tim McGuire, who teaches journalism at Arizona State (h/t Romo):

The progression of bad newspaper news is not surprising, but the lack of concern is mystifying and frightening. [Michael] Hirschhorn [in the Atlantic] wrote this: The collapse of daily print journalism will mean many things……. And it will seriously damage the press’s ability to serve as a bulwark of democracy.” Ya think? Hirschhorn tossed off in one dismissive sentence one of the most crucial potential developments for journalism and democracy since the First Amendment. I think brass bands are required to force a focus on the democratic implications of what’s happening.

Despite the general lack of debate and concern about the subject, I was taken by the insight of a blogger for Science News who made this observation: “What we have to keep in mind is that true journalism is the closest thing most adults have to formal continuing education. Each newsroom that goes dark, then, amounts to another school closing.”

At least someone is worried about the implications of what’s happening. I think about it all the time and it’s going to be one of the key themes for my two classes this semester: The Business and Future of Journalism and a graduate seminar called 21st Century Journalism. I am going to spend a lot less time in this year’s classes this year discussing the demise of mainstream media and try to focus more on what’s going to replace the floundering corporate media model to which we’ve all become accustomed.

The “market” will supply some of those answers. As mainstream media outlets struggle and flop around like beached whales I am convinced creative entrepreneurs are going to find new openings in the competitive landscape. For example if the Detroit papers leave a hole in the front part of the week, I will be shocked if somebody doesn’t start a weekly web/print publication to cover sports in that market. (Insert your own damn Lions joke!) With big players scrambling out of the picture, the landscape will change and so will business models.

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2 Comments

Bret Ancowitz said:

I share everyone's concern about this topic, but I think that newspapers deserve a bit more blame than has been aimed at them (which has been essentially none). They too made some huge mistakes that they are paying for:

1 - Less of a focus on hard news:

This has been true for many years, even decades, as papers still asked you to pay the same or more for their product, which over time had less and less hard reporting as "lifestyle" fluff started to take over. This was under the excuse of "giving the public what they want"... They lost some credibility in this respect as an institution and has contributed to their decline and lack of outrage. Frankly, most local newspapers haven't done an ounce of "defending democracy" investigative journalism in decades, if ever (the one where I grew up has long been a "human interest" rag). People don't need USA Today or the ProJo to get Brittany news or high school sports scores anymore...

2 - The newspapers never had you pay for "news":

I think this is the most incorrect element of reporting, often discussed as the internet "giving away" news to viewers who have been trained to expect not to pay... Newspapers themselves had no qualms about doing this in the early days of the net because, generally, newspapers *never* asked you to really pay for the news. They made their real money not on subscriptions but on classifieds, jobs listings, auto inserts, special advertising sections, etc. These were business models that had nothing to do with news, but servcies, and were thus vulnerable. If, hypothetically, we lived in an internet age that somehow didn't have Craigslist and Match.com and autotrader.com and all of that market (and money) still went to the newspapers (or their own online sites), would we really be having this soul-searching conversation about whether people "value news" enough to pay? I don't think so. I think newspapers are dying precisely because they never asked people for 100 years to pay for the news, but only their services...

3 - Follow the leader:

Newspapers have for much of their history been reactionary organizations, and not proactive. Today, 15 years after widespread net adoption by most of the world, many papers are *still* experimenting with or tweaking their (generally terrible) online website presences. The ProJo site is an embarrassment. This is their fault.

Again, terrible overall situation for democracy, but I wouldn't paint newspapers as naive, blameless actors in their own downfall...

- Bret

Greater City Providence Urbanism Blog

http://www.gcpvd.org

January 15, 2009 3:39 PM

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News-Apocalypse: where's the concern?

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