Newspapers R.I.P.?
Respected media watchers from all over are writing obituaries of newspapers. I find a great deal of substance in what they say, particularly about the need for transparency and more voices and journalistic credibility. But -- and I hope I am not just thinking with my heart -- I happen to believe the reports premature. That's not my point here, however.
The most recent of these, a report for the Carnegie Corporation of New York, studies news consumption of 18-to-34-year-olds. And, amid all the dire predictions for newspapers is this nugget:
Despite these innovations, some experts still warn that the news business -- and with it, perhaps, the nation itself -- faces a troubled future. As David Mindich, author of Tuned Out: Why Americans Under 40 Don't Follow the News (Oxford University Press, 2004) concluded in a recent interview on an industry web site that today's young citizens "are still just as thoughtful, intelligent -- and I would argue, literate -- as ever before. What has changed is that young people no longer see a need to keep up with the news." Says Mindich in his recent book: "America is facing the greatest exodus of informed citizenship in its history."
We see it, too. In news stories in which a 20-year-old resident says she has never heard of the Truth and Reconciliation project. In letters, in which a resident learned about the Klan-Nazi shootings from a theatrical production.
Without question, this is a newspaper and a journalism problem. We're making some progress in addressing ways to reach new audiences in different, inviting ways. But it's also a societal problem that's frightening. I wish I had a good answer for that.
Comments (8)
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John, unfortunately newspapers are in the final days.
Some of it is due to the fact that people no longer believe what they read in the papers because of the misdeeds of some. Many feel the newspapers are not truthful and only print one side of the story and that is true in some cases. Bias plays a larger role than some are willing to admit.
Part of it is due to the fact that newspapers are getting like the TV media in that they offer only sound bites and not real deep, nitty gritty news. The more at eleven syndrome doesn't work in the print media. Local news is halfheartedly reported,unless it contains some drastic event or even worse slime on some leader in the community. Look at your own blogs and see the response to local news as to that of sensational news items. Local for the most part is ignored.
I have been reading newspapers for over half a century now and have observed the changes. I still have a few old papers around if you would care to check out how papers have become less news oriented.
Newspapers have also gotten into the entertainment business along with TV journalism, offering only the sensational, i.e. the fluff and not the meat.(See above remarks)
It is not all the fault of the newspapers John and I am not beating up on real news journalist. Much of it has to do with our society where instant gratification is the norm rather than the exception as it was some years ago. We have become "rushed" society where no one takes the time or wishes to take the time to read or listen to anything more than "soundbites". We now equate everything with instant potatoes, instant breakfast drinks, fast foods, instant marriage and a devastating instant divorce. There is no longer the time for anything of substance. Even preachers sermons are dictated by the clock. Preach past twelve noon and your congregation is looking at the clock wondering if they will make it to the local cafeteria or restaurant before the crowds and hoping that the benediction is pronounced soon. Some even start toward the doors before the last amen is said.
So John we can prepare for the wake because it is not long in coming.
The only hope is that newspapers will begin to give the readers more meat and less fluff and that somehow the readers will realize that there is something more than "soundbite news" and instant everything. In that regard there is little hope. We didn't become an instant society overnight and we won't change back into a society of substance seekers overnight.
The cause of death will read: instant gratification and lack of substance.
Will the tombstone read RIP? I certainly hope not.
Posted on April 1, 2005 11:07 AM
Mr. Produce, you make some very good points, much as I hate to admit it, not because you make the point, but because I started my journalism career in daily newspapers, at THIS newspaper as a matter of fact, so I have a soft spot in my heart for daily newspapers.
I left daily newspapers for daily online journalism a few years ago and, while I remain a steady newspaper reader, I know my peers OUTSIDE of the business don't read the newspaper and get most of their news from TV or Web sites and even then it's just the headlines.
I think the N&R was on top of the online news trend and has done a good job of evolving with it. I'm hoping the great minds there can come up with some way to help newspapers evolve and have a second life. Or third one. Or fourth one. They were threatened by radio and TV, but still managed to survive, right?
Posted on April 1, 2005 12:40 PM
"Mainstream media types spend a lot of time complaining to each other that you can't get real news anywhere anymore. Then we go to work and spend all day pounding to death the same story as everyone else." -- Tina Brown, The Washington Post
Read the full column here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14556-2005Mar30.html
Posted on April 1, 2005 12:50 PM
The real problem with newspapers is twofold:
1) There is no news in them each day. Everyone already knows everything that is in them anyway with the exception of maybe one or two stories because newspapers assemble news for publication the NEXT DAY. And, those two "new" stories aren't important enough for someone to know about sooner than everyone else (or bother to buy a newspaper for). They will learn of those two "scoops" through other media sources throughout their day (if they even need to know.)
2) There are no other stories in the paper (minus news) that people want to read. Why? Because journalists are too busy writing stories to get their next job at the next big paper. They are amassing their clip files that are written FOR other journalists -- not readers. At any given point, every single journalist at the News & Record is scheming about what their next "clip" story is going to be (I guarantee it). Everything else is done just so they can get "freed up" to write the big story that will land them their next job. So, even the non-clip stories don't even get the attention they deserve. Those non-clip stories are the drudgery that exists so they can do the big, great Journalism (that readers don't care about.)
I won't even start to talk about the stories and things in the paper that are devoid of utility. Actual USEFUL information is missing. Completely.
Posted on April 1, 2005 8:03 PM
govtwriter, I can not speak as a newspaper person having never done more than as a young boy delivered my hometown newspaper. Back then the paper was 50 cents a week, not per paper so you can tell how long that has been. I think I might have made 5 cents out of that 50 cents.
Yes , I remember when TV news started and all the newspapers and nay sayers were crying that TV would put them out of business but they survived for the time being. Unfortunately this was the beginning I believe of the downward spiral of real journalism in the newspaper business. I heard an old time editor, Carl Jones once say that newspaper people are not made , they are born.(something to that effect) He acclaimed that to something akin to a inborn sense of what made real news and what was just fluff. I can see a bit of what he meant when I open the pages of the news today and find so little substance. I read over a dozen newspaper each day,when I have the time more, on-line, some are in the abbreviated version and some are the full newspapers. These come from all over the US and from around the world. I see the same decline in the papers outside the US but not, I do not believe, to the depth as it is here.
Your quote by Tina Brown holds so much truth.
Will newspapers survive? Not in the form that they are in today. I can not see how they can. Will they evolve into something of substance? I can only hope. As long as writers for newspapers go for the sensational and not the news that carries a community the decline will continue, unfortunately.
I have always loved newspapers and loved to read them in the full detail, unfortunately today, when you have read one ,you have read them all. Small town newspapers are an exception such as the Elizabethton Star, and the Bendigo, Australia papers. Most folks make fun of these papers because they are the community news with some of the AP stories thrown in for good measure and I think sometimes filler. Haha.
Thanks for your kind comments and your contribution to this process of evolution. At least I was not called an idiot or stupid because I am not a newspaper person.
Posted on April 1, 2005 8:17 PM
The newspaper was pronounced dead on arrival of the telegraph, radio, and television, yet somehow it managed to survive and thrive through all three, it will continue to survive.
Will there be changes? Hard times? Ideas that don't work? Mergers? Takeovers? Going out of business sales? Yes, newspapers will continue to struggle with all those things for the next two hundred years just as newspapers have struggled with those same problems for the last 300 years. My prediction: Someday the Greensboro Daily News will be beamed via satelite into something that resembles a PDA, Palm Pilot, or that new Apple thingie to subscribers worldwide. Just think of the circulation potential they'll have then.
And the cost of publishing will be almost nothing compared to today's cost.
Someday, newspapers may not be made of paper, but the daily news will exist as long as humanity exists.
Posted on April 1, 2005 8:36 PM
Already happening Billy. One can subscribe to dozens of on-line newspapers from across the US to around the world. Cost is still a bit high but for some papers it is worthwhile.
My worry about papers is content, not just surviving. Papers need not be an entertainment piece to survive but unfortunately that is the trend in so many of the papers today.
Until people demand more, which is doubtful given the "instant" mentality, papers will continue to print fluff and no real substance.
Posted on April 2, 2005 8:42 AM
PAPSTER
I'd go with the free music. A blog can't hurt the free press and it can't replace the newspaper. Keep on rockin in the free world. Roll the mp3 into the blog and see what happens. After the plastic music CD's are gone, the presses will still be rolling. You guys do what you want!
Exhibit #3
The Washington Post is offering uploads http://mp3.washingtonpost.com/
http://mp3.washingtonpost.com/top_downloads.shtml
http://mp3.washingtonpost.com/new_uploads.shtml
Posted on April 3, 2005 8:22 AM