On newspapers' Death and Dying: It's time for acceptance
Doug Fisher -- and Terry Heaton before him and Steve Boriss before him and Vin Crosbie before him -- has adapted the Kubler-Ross model on death and dying to newspapers.
It's not a bad fit, either.
As decribed by Wikipedia, the stages are:
Denial: "It can't be happening."
Anger: "Why me? It's not fair."
Bargaining: "Just let me live to see my children graduate."
Depression: "I'm so sad, why bother with anything?"
Acceptance: "It's going to be OK."
Heaton suggested in April that, as a whole, the industry is at the depression stage. Today, after last week when roughly 900 journalists, according to Mark Potts, lost their jobs in announced layoffs, my guess is that the depression stage is standing room only, all right.
Everyone I know feels the instability of the marketplace, the job insecurity and the fear of the unknown -- unknown future, unknown skills. Part of it is certainly inept management; I'm working on that here. Guiding folks through the stages is among the most difficult things I've done as a boss.
Industrywide, it is time for acceptance, and I think more journalists are there than the reports on Romenesko would suggest. That's the only way to focus on the challenges before us. While we enjoy, understand and, perhaps, privately cheer on the Angry Journalist, we also know intellectually that economic reality means we look to the future. Like, yesterday.
That means we understand how the world has changed, and we understand how our journalistic skills and assumptions must change. For instance, learning what it takes to be a digital journalist is vital. Reaching readers -- information consumers, really -- where, how and when they want it is good for journalism. Listening to and learning from them is even better.
Nostalgia for the good old days is a new form of professional shackles. What we did back then doesn't work any longer and isn't coming back. We control our own destiny by embracing the new opportunities to practice journalism. And if you truly love journalism, why wouldn't you want to reach and engage with new people? For instance:
* Thousands of people watched our video of Obama's speech as well as read about it online and in the paper.
* Hundreds of gearheads read about pit crews in the paper and watched the video online.
* Every day citizens discuss issues of the day at the coffee shop and lunch counters and online at our site and others. And they aren't just the predictable hot button topics. They include topics such as daycare for jurors, organ donation and problems a neighborhood is having.
And that's just us and we aren't even leaders in the field. Other opportunities lie with microblogging and beat blogging and social networking. As noted journalist Jerry Seinfeld told us, we should look to the cookie. In this case, Oreos, which has gone from one vanilla creme filled cookie to a dozen different types of Oreo, with different flavors and shapes and coatings. Journalism is in the process of reaching different customers in the ways those people want to be reached.
Clearly, I am optimistic about the future of good journalism. How do we pay for it? Smarter people than I -- thank goodness -- are working on that. Potts proposes solutions. So does Newspaper Next. So does Jeff Jarvis. (Link fixed.)
In the old way of thinking, it will be a rough road. If you think of journalism as ink on paper, your paradigm is breaking apart. If you think of journalism as telling good stories the best way you can, the world is opening like a brilliantly colored Chinese fan.
Monday update: Jay Rosen brings a different, more apt, metaphor into play.
Comments (9)
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You keep using the word newspaper. Show me one and I buy it most every day. Obama makes the statement in Feb. 2008 I am one hundred percent behind the DC ban on guns. June 2008, Obama makes statement, the supreme court was correct in striking out the DC gun ban. I brought the NR, NO Friday , Saturday Sunday , have not seen one word about this.
Only Fox and CNN has brought this up.
I can remeber when Newpapers printed the news. Can you?
Posted on June 29, 2008 8:35 PM
Somewhat off topic, but Ron Rosenbaum did a wonderful dissection of the "Kubler-Ross model on death and dying," branding it so much BS. (Five distinct stages of dying? Really?) Some details here: http://www.slate.com/id/2107069/
Posted on June 29, 2008 9:57 PM
I'm tired of hearing that today's journalists aren't ready for change, haven't embraced the Internet, or are sitting on some porch of the Old Editors' Home, shaking their fists and longing for the good old days.
We do embrace change and are looking for the next stage. But we are tired of seeing newsholes shrink, talented people kicked to the curb and leftover ideas trotted out again and again.
Why not ditch the print format entirely and go to a Web delivery system? Why not invest in investigative journalism, not just extended crime reports labled with some so-called catchy title?
The best of yesterday's journalistic ideals can be transported into the future. You just have to have the guts to do it, and I haven't seen many newsroom leaders who meet that qualification.
Posted on June 30, 2008 5:42 PM
I know more newspaper people who are frustrated at the slow pace of change than those who wish to return to the way things used to be.
Other things that frustrate us:
* The timidness from on high to let the rank-and-file do new things (the News & Record is better at that than most).
* The miserable lack of investment in new technology. I think that's been the industry's big downfall.
The only thing I'd like to use a pica pole for anymore is to slap some backsides and get them moving along faster. But I always was impatient, I remember being told more than once! I'm starting to think I wasn't impatient enough.
The only things I'm truly wistful about from the old days:
* Job security.
* MUCH better newsroom parties.
Posted on June 30, 2008 6:21 PM
Newspapers should turn even FURTHER left -- that'll attract an even WIDER audience. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Posted on July 1, 2008 10:28 AM
Nice post. Mark Potts is all over it. In addition to the post of his you linked to, I found this one to be incredibly insightful.
Posted on July 2, 2008 10:35 AM
"Reaching readers -- information consumers, really -- where, how and when they want it is good for journalism"
Good point. But that doesn't mean the print newspaper is dead, or should be dying.
It would be interesting to have some researchers do a serious study to determine when and where people consume news and other information. At home in the morning? At home in the evening? At work? How much do they watch tv news? How much do they read dailies? Weeklies?
But that wouldn't solve newspapers' economic problem. The problem is a dramatic shift in their traditional sources of advertising -- department stores have merged (why didn't they oppose these mergers editorially), much of their classified content has gone elsewhere. Very simply, newspapers need to (1) learn how to sell the value of newspaper advertising and (2) go after new advertisers.
My guess is that this process is underway. As for the death of print, as long as people use restrooms, there will be a market for print newspapers.
Posted on July 2, 2008 7:51 PM
If only simple answers would work. This time, they don't.
Look at the players in the destruction of Knight Ridder and Times Mirror, and the people behind Media News and Journal Register ... and observe the pattern. Megarich Wall Street guys who have zero interest in an informed democracy, public service, or the citizenry's need to know. In fact, the deal-makers all have this in common: Their financial health is probably best served by keeping the populace ignorant, and keeping their deals unexamined.
We still hear complaints of "Leftist Media" when it's owned by Sam Zell, Dean Singleton, Rupert Murdoch and Clear Channel.
Wild conspiracy? You decide.
Posted on July 5, 2008 2:40 PM
Mr. John Robinson - Regarding changes on the comics page, why not dispose of comic strips such as Doonesbury, Brewster Rockit, FoxTrot, Non Sequitur, Get Fuzzy, Over the Hedge, & Shoe instead of For Better or For Worse which majority of people enjoy even if there are reruns. Our crapy newspaper has gone to the dogs and is geared towards those with little intelligence.
S. Patraw
Posted on August 31, 2008 2:46 PM