Posted on 11/15/2006 12:33:32 PM PST by abb
Hope for haters of "the media" of whatever stripe or flavor! Judging from recent events, they may not have much media to kick around any more. Things are definitely on the droop in news-media land.
One reason morale is down is reportorial work is getting exceedingly dangerous. In recent weeks Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative journalist, was murdered in Moscow; so far this year in Iraq twenty-six journalists have been killed; and just the other day, according to the Associated Press, "Misael Tamayo Hernandez, editor of El Despertar de la Costa, was found nearly naked, with his hands tied behind his back, in a room of the Venus Motel on a highway, Zihuatanejo police officials said." Incidents like that can put a chill on recruiting at the J-school job fair.
While foreign journalists are losing their lives, journalists in America are losing their jobs. The Christian Science Monitor reports that "daily newspapers in New York, Boston, Houston, St. Louis, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and elsewhere are laying off or buying out hundreds of newsroom employees, as well as other workers." And talk about covering your own funeral: The Monitor added that "last summer, The Christian Science Monitor cut newsroom jobs, too." Those cities do not begin to exhaust the list of places where reporters and editors are being let go.
While reporters are not yet as scarce as hen's teeth, there are far fewer of them than there used to be. Here is an instance brought to us by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, one of those high-toned outfits that studies the state of things and issues reports: "There are roughly half as many reporters covering metropolitan Philadelphia, for instance, as in 1980. The number of newspaper reporters there has fallen from 500 to 220. The pattern at the suburban papers around the city has been similar, though not as extreme. The local TV stations, with the exception of Fox, have cut back on traditional news coverage. The five AM radio stations that used to cover news have been reduced to two. As recently as 1990, the Philadelphia Inquirer had 46 reporters covering the city. Today it has 24."
The cause of mass reporter firings are varied, but the biggest is long-term loss of circulation, sometimes slowly and sometimes shockingly quick. "Average daily circulation dropped by 2.8 percent during the six-month period ended Sept. 30, compared with the period last year, according to an industry analysis of data released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Circulation for Sunday papers fell by 3.4 percent," wrote the New York Times. If the readers continue to disappear at this rate into the Internet or die off or opt out of word communication for pictures and music, the advertisers are going to do the same.
As readers evaporate, so do advertisers and, although American newspapers continue to be more profitable than most businesses, there is panic over what the future holds in store. Investors, fixated on what they think is going to happen, have pushed down the price of newspaper stocks. The fall in the price is driving the remaining newspaper stockholders nuts.
American corporate managers are schooled to do one thing and one thing only under stress--lay people off. Here and there around the country editors have been resisting. They have been tussling with their own managements, insisting that there comes a point when laying off staff hurts the quality of the product.
One such drama has been playing out at the Los Angeles Times, where over the past couple of years two top editors have been shown the door for refusal to lop heads. The Times is owned by the Tribune, a Chicago-based corporation that owns dozens of newspapers, TV stations, Internet sites and even a Major League Baseball team. It makes money, pots of it, but not enough to keep the price of its stock where its owners would like it to be.
Since the major shareholders are interested in money, not product quality, they are willing to sell the company or, if they can make more money another way, to split it up and sell it off piece by piece. That is what was done earlier this year with the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain. K-R, a quality outfit with a special ethos, is now in pieces under various owners with various ideas of what a good newspaper is supposed to be.
If the Tribune corporation is broken up, God knows who will end up owning its papers. Rumor has it that billionaire entertainment wheeler-dealer David Geffen and real estate developer Eli Broad may team up to buy the LA Times.
So who needs newspapers anyhow? We have the Internet. Other than the websites supported by newspapers, the Internet is devoid of reporters. The Internet operations do not pay people to go out and gather accurate information. Thus we are bumping up against a contradictory situation. Thanks to the Internet, the iPod and so forth, we have more media outlets than ever before--but fewer reporters.
When the last reporter is laid off, we can subsist on rumor, speculation and gossip. These three are usually more interesting than the facts, but do you want to bet your life and livelihood on them?
Well, there is always what they call citizen journalism. That means, if you see something, take a picture of it with your cellphone and call in. It's not exactly New York Times reliability, but it's open-source, and they tell us that is terrific stuff. You know about Wikipedia. So why not wiki-wacky news?
When the last reporter is laid off, we can subsist on rumor, speculation and gossip.MSM rumor, speculation and gossip will die with MSM.
So why not wiki-wacky news?They already did that. They call it MSM.
You should go dig them out and examine them, not for the Sputnik coverage but for all the day-to-day stuff ... especially in the three papers which still exist (or four, if you managed to grab a Newsday way back when). You'll find that they contained a lot more information than today's versions, and that the information was, for the most part, much more objective. It's hard evidence that the MSM has dug its own grave over the last 40 years.
You know, this false argument gets really tiring. Product quality is not measured by the number of employees; it's measured by what the employees produce. If they'd stop producing trash that is both biased and generally unappealing to the consumer, then they'd still have enough readers to be making gigantic profits.
As I just posted higher up in this same thread, go to your local library sometime and dig out any random issue of your local paper from the 50's or 60's and compare it to any random issue of the same paper today. I guarantee you that you'll find the 40-to-50-year-old paper to have been a far superior product. The newspaper business turned on its customers starting around 1970 or so, give or take a few years (though Watergate unquestionably sealed the deal), and it's only due to the slow progress of technology up to this point that's caused their circulation to take this long to start declining. If newspapers were still worth reading, people would still be reading them. Nobody's stopped reading books because of the Internet.
Maybe we can reinstate the draft...
I haven't bought one in years.
I think the last time I bought a newspaper was in Reagan last term. I quit reading those pukes. I stopped watching NBC, ABC, CBS in the early to mid-90s. I quit watching CNN and the others around 1995 or 1996. I watched FOX. Now, I don't even watch FOX anymore. I cannot remember the last time I actually sat down and watched a TV news program. I get it off the Internet.
Thanks for the memories with that old Lampoon. (Rest in peace, Michael O'Donoghue.)
Tell me, Nicholas, ol' buddy, ol' pal, is "rumor, speculation or gossip" any worse than "DNC talking points"?
You have the right to remain silent...
Oh yeah. "I wish ... that you had ... more time!" BOOM!"
"So who needs newspapers anyhow? We have the Internet. Other than the websites supported by newspapers, the Internet is devoid of reporters. The Internet operations do not pay people to go out and gather accurate information. Thus we are bumping up against a contradictory situation. Thanks to the Internet, the iPod and so forth, we have more media outlets than ever before--but fewer reporters."
Ever hear of blogs?
BTW, shameless plug for my team. The Crawford Pirates enter the playoffs rated #2 or #3 in the state, depending on which poll you follow:
They won the state championship of Texas for 2A in 2004, and lost to the eventual state champions in the quarterfinals in 2005 (the winner of the Crawford-Celina matchup has won the state title the last two years). Anyway, Crawford has 190 students, and should be ranked in 1A, but will be playing schools roughly twice it's size during most of the playoffs.
Pirates of Crawford, Texas. Gotta love high school football at playoff time.
Thanks for the ping. Death of Propaganda is great news. Truth bump!
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/sam_fulwood/index.ssf?/base/opinion/116367077464530.xml&coll=2
Colleagues leaving the saddest news
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Sam Fulwood III
Plain Dealer Columnist
Gone forever are the pals that I love
There isn't a trace or a sign
Of that honest to goodness old bunch
I called that old gang of mine.
- World War I era poem
It has been a sad struggle at work lately.
Almost daily, to our applause and cheers, once-valued colleagues walk out the big door, never to return as members of the Plain Dealer staff.
Gone already are some remarkable reporters, editors, photographers, researchers and clerical staffers. More will leave by year's end. Sixty-four accepted a company buyout.
I'm not one of them. I don't blame those who did. I guess it was too good a deal to pass up.
But I'm not happy about it, either. I've spent most waking hours during the past six years in their company. I hate seeing them go, leaving me behind.
While I don't fully understand the economic reality that made this necessary, I know more about it than I want. Good journalism is expensive to produce, but the company felt the need to cut costs. It wasn't personal; it was business.
Some 30 years ago, when I started, I had no clue about the business of newspapers. All I knew - or cared to know - was that being a reporter was great fun. I never paid a moment's attention to whether the paper made or lost money.
But somewhere along the way, that changed. I began to realize that newspapers are businesses and I began to care whether the owners pocketed enough to pay me - and all of my buddies.
I don't need to tell that to the folks in the steel and auto industries, who watched co-workers leave again and again. They knew better than I, that when things don't go well, people lose their jobs. Now I understand.
My bosses tell me it's an evolution, not a death spiral. They say newspapers will survive because people need the daily information we provide.
But, they insist, we must change to compete better with the Internet and 600-plus channels of television.
That's why I'm so sad to bid farewell to the best bunch of foxhole buddies I've ever known. They won't be in the trenches when we need them most.
Instead, they're packing up and moving off the front lines, from the life and battles we've shared together.
From my less-than-private desk on the edge of a thinning newsroom, I see them put their world into cardboard boxes.
Details are important to journalists. We don't let them go easily. That's why my old friends carefully place every wire-bound notebook or yellowed clipping, the souvenirs of a well-spent life, into take-home containers.
I watched one old-timer gingerly kiss a coffee-stained cup before placing it on top of his bundle to be carted out. I'd swear his lips trembled and his eyes brimmed with tears.
Another friend, colleague and editor didn't try to hold back her emotions. When everyone in the newsroom stood and applauded for her goodbye walk, she refused to look at us. Her shoulders slumped and heaved as she disappeared under the exit sign.
It doesn't help knowing that The Plain Dealer isn't alone in losing good people. In fact, we're better off than most other daily newspapers. Our circulation is dipping, but not as fast or as steeply as in some other cities.
No, Cleveland is the right place to make a stand.
I just wish that old gang of mine was still in the fight beside me.
To reach Sam Fulwood III:
sfulwood@plaind.com, 216-999-5250
Now this is journalism.
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