Posted on 01/01/2010 3:28:06 PM PST by abb
As the media landscape continues to skew to online from print, more news outlets may feel financial pressure to test just how much readers care about professional credentials.
Looking into the media furor over swine flu last spring, I interviewed a UCLA epidemiologist, who told me it was best to assume "a posture of humility" in trying to assess how deadly the H1N1 virus would be.
"This is a virus we haven't seen before," said Dr. Robert Kim-Farley. "We don't really know what will happen."
I've thought often in recent months about those words, which just as easily might be applied to viral change infecting the news media.
We don't know exactly what's coming in the news business, only that change is coming fast. But if 2010 is anything like the year just ending, expect to see: more opinion, more partisanship, more (amateur) voices in the mix, more niche websites, less original reporting, less separation between news and advertising, and fewer paid journalists on the beat.
Information in the broadband, iPhone world will be more accessible, more quickly. Many consumers will find outlets that slice and dice information by subject, ideology and tone in ways they find pleasing. But with the citizenry increasingly fitted into a series of silos, the challenge of coming together for a civil, coherent conversation will grow greater.
The technological disruption shaking professional media, though, has empowered a new information army.
When mainstream reporters were driven out of Iran around last June's presidential election, everyday citizens took up the story, using cellphones and Twitter accounts to beam tales of voter fraud to the world. YouTube images of Neda Agha-Soltan, 26, bleeding to death on the streets of Tehran, made it hard for us to turn away from brutality and repression.
snip
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Shoot the dog; there’s no serious jurinalism left.
Add in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.
Notice the use of the word “journalism” as the object of value. People never bought a newspaper for “journalism.” They wanted to read the news—or sports, or classifieds. The end-product is supposed to be facts. Or, news. Sometimes, possibly, truth.
He might have asked if people value the “facts.” But he knows so little of the facts, and clearly is one of those who values them not.
Oh well. And they wonder why they are in the tank.
I see two just got canned in my local rag.
Being a homer writer is one thing and acceptable.
Getting silly over it - your gone. Why? Everyone is sick of it.
You know, in all the stories we’ve read over the years about the demise of newspapers, it’s curious that one key, if not THE key fact, is never mentioned. Newspapers, during their glory days..the 50’s-90’s....when they flourished..and virtually minted money and profits..well, dureing that time..they were for the most part..monopolies..Yes, there were a few instances in major cities where there was competition...but usually one or more of those “competing” papers was owned by a huge chain and/or media conglomerate....more than willing to cover any losses. So before we cry crocodile tears over their demise..let’s remember the tyranny of the monopoly..the small businessman who wanted to place a help wanted ad....want 1/8 page in your local paper..it was about $400 in the 70’s...about one week’s wages for the positon being advertised...and they sounded like they were doing you a favor... they killed themselves, because they refused torecognize how the new technologies would impact them....they weren’t tat good after all..they just had the game rigged for 40 years....
I have a saying I like to use around my left minded associates. “Liberals are always the first and loudest to cry for sacrifice. But, the only thing they bring to the altar is their neighbors.”
Well said. That attitude is reflective of the growing intolerance gap between the coastal elites and people who live in the rest of what used to be a unified country. The stereotyping of Sarah Palin as an ignorant "hick" is a perfect example. She doesn't have a "cultured" East Coast accent, an Ivy League degree and says "You betcha!" While she's been a mayor and governor and has far more experience than our current "President," Alaska seems a backward and unimportant state to that crowd.
Howell Raines! Good one. LOL He wouldn’t know the truth if it ordered him to pack a valise and report to the concentration camp.
Precisely. Monopoly was all they ever had. See my post #17. Think how much capital was required to set up an electronic broadcast system via TV or radio. Think how much capital is required to do the same for an ink-on-paper information distribution system (aka newspaper). And think about mass production of paper and how expensive that is.
Lots and lots of money, which bars most folks from entry into the marketplace. De facto monopoly situation.
And also see this by Jeff Jarvis.
http://www.buzzmachine.com/
Surrendering advertising … killing bundling
They can keep their drivel and I’ll keep my money.
Seems like a good deal to me.
Well, before I will pay for news, it has to actually BE news, and not propaganda. What is needed is not "professional credentials", but "professional ethics".
Right now, amateur journalists display more professional ethics than do "professional" reporters.
See #33.
I know I’ve prolly posted this link before, but it shows clearly what a monster infrastructure was once required to do electronic telecommunications.
Immense manpower and capital.
You can’t be serious. The SPJ has been excellent in that aspect, even donating to conservative papers to make up losses from liberal activists trying to suppress the free press.
No.
That’s not wholly the issue.
I pay for online versions of newspapers (IBD and Barron’s) - but what they write helps me make money. These papers are doing relatively well (relative to the rest of the newspaper industry).
Why? They don’t report the latest Hollywood gossip (which I could find at hundreds of tattle-tale websites who are parasites chasing celebutards as they self-destruct), or sports (I find there is nothing more useless than American team sports lately - and I would not shed a tear if all big-money national sports teams were simply dispensed with tomorrow). There’s absolutely no money in employing writers in covering local news any more, because the people who are truly interested in what is going on in local government are now able to watch live video of the government meetings in so many localities. Why read a summary when you can watch the real McCoy?
Advertising had been the actual business of a newspaper for years and years - and now, with the exception of legal notices, people and businesses have abandoned newspapers as the place to advertise. Want to sell your lawnmower? You list it on Craigslist, or eBay. Easier for interested people to find and you (the advertiser) gets more eyeballs looking at your goods than you do with a newspaper.
Once the newspaper industry lost the big advertisers (esp. the auto companies and auto dealers), the last nail was in the coffin lid.
There will be markets for journalism that is hard-hitting, balanced, etc - but highly and narrowly specialized. It will also expensive for subscribers in order to make it profitable for the publisher(s) - and the publisher will be delivering value in excess of the cost to the subscriber, much as IBD does.
The days of the “all the news fit to print in one paper” are over - no matter how well written or “balanced,” “objective” or any other sort of criteria you might want to add. The trends in circulation and advertising revenue have converged and will now take down most all newspapers in the country, no matter how balanced they are.
All city papers bring in content from the AP, Reuters, and UPI (if UPI exists any longer). These are not “conservative” sources for news. As for national papers like Investors Business Daily or the Wall Street Journal, well, the Wall Street Journal has increased its overall circulation from 2,069,463 in 2008 to 2.1 million (0.6%) in Oct. 2009.
http://www.newscorp.com/news/news_377.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/business/media/27audit.html/?_r=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_Street_Journal#cite_note-1
I'd suggest there are no “conservative” papers and that is as much as half of the reason all papers are heading downward in circulation. The rest is from a lack of interest in them (perhaps in favor of internet sources).
That is an important point. There’s an additional point that escapes most notice outside investor circles:
In keeping with their monopoly mentality, many newspapers were held in family trusts. The LA Times, NY Times are two examples. The actual voting shares were closely held “B” shares, and then the other classes of stock were non-voting or had diluted voting rights. The closely-held voting shares of the family trust(s) held sway and were able to keep anyone from buying the paper or buying a majority of the stock in the markets and gaining even a seat on the board.
As time went on, many of the family members had little to no interest in exercising any business oversight of the paper, just so long as their restricted class share dividends were paid to support their lavish coupon-clipping lifestyles. It is only when the papers really hit bottom that the family members would wake up and “demanded to know what happened.”
And what has now happened is irreversible, even if they hire management that literally walks on water. They now find themselves owning controlling interest(s) in buggy whip manufactures.
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