- Image via Wikipedia
Part of our series on ideas, practices, institutions and mores that appear to be on their way to extinction.
Online political observers and commentators – from The New Republic to Powerline to Huffington Post to Slate to Salon to Hot Air – have long complained about traditional media. These newspapers and magazines (such as Time and Newsweek) are likened to a herd of dinosaurs. Why?
As the internet gained usage and readership, the voices railing against mainstream media outlets became more adamant. Entire sites devoted to exposing journalistic irregularities sprouted like weeds: Patterico took on the Los Angeles Times; Anti-Strib was formed to expose editorial bias at the Minneapolis Star Tribune; LGF got lucky with Rathergate; Arianna Huffington and Markos Moulitsas created the left-wing bandwagon; an army of others across the blogosphere took up arms against tradition in journalism. The commonality? The perception that traditional media and journalism were providing a fractal of truth, diminished objectivity, and an agenda-driven slant via outlets purporting a non-subjective, balanced platform.
The free press has long been held as a pillar of democracy, bolstered by a perception of superiority to propaganda outlets, shielded by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and benefiting from legal protections in democratic societies throughout the world. Only lately (the last 50 or 60 years or so) has the profession of journalism been elevated to the pedestal of immunity from influence, committed to holy justice and pure truth, all flavored by lofty perspective and academic credentialing. This elevation in perception has been primarily self-appointed and aggrandized.
Stalwart heroes and heroines in journalism achieved status by reporting from exotic and dangerous locations and by manning nightly anchor chairs. Legendary characters, both real and fictional, from Edward R. Murrow to Hildy Johnson to “Uncle” Walter Cronkite to Nellie Bly, were beloved paragons of dedication to the tenets of source protection, investigative technique, and codes of ethics. These were the pros, and every kid who ever took a J-school class aspired, if only for a moment, to the likes of Woodward and Bernstein.
Professionals dominated the practice and culture of journalism via control. That was the Old World. The New World, filled with semi-pros who are self-publishing in blog and online magazine format, is daring to question and hold the Old World accountable.
- Image via Wikipedia
In the Old World, news was bought and consumed from the “fit to print” menu. Valeria Maltoni reminds us that content is a product, just like an entree or a side order of fries, and should be treated as such. With the advent and maturity of the Internet, more ordinary folks began to bring their own food to the table and share it with other diners. Old journalism began to look like Mel the fry-cook, standing behind the counter with a greasy spatula, incredulous that a customer would demand only free-range chicken.
Maltoni points to Jay Rosen, of NYU’s School of Journalism, who calls this a “Migration Point for the press tribe.“ Others similarly note that the revolutionary aspects of news dissemination in blogs and micro-blogging platforms have “deposed the secular priests . . .” who were used to dominating by deciding “all the news that’s fit to print,” rather than all the news that might be out there. In the Old World of journalism, little mind needed to be paid to the 3rd world, or flyover land – which is located west of the Hudson and definitely “outside the Beltway” ringing Washington, D.C.
Adam Tinworth (link via Maltoni and Rosen) explains that media people think of blogging and the internet as a publishing process, rather than acknowledge the context that community brings. There’s a protective wall that old journalism wants kept between the news consumer and those who are slinging the hash. Tinworth believes journalists still want to “see themselves as a class apart.” News media moguls belatedly began to realize the empire was in danger of being swept away by a more demanding customer base. Their fix? Hubris. They dug their heels and offered more of the same.
Scott Rosenberg, founder of Salon, says
. . . the woes of the journalism profession today have been at least partially self-inflicted. At the very historical moment that the news pros faced relentless new scrutiny from a vast army of dedicated amateur watchdogs and expert critics, they offered up a relentless sequence of missteps and disasters. Some were failures of professionalism, from the Jayson Blair meltdown to the Dan Rather screwup. But the biggest — the absence of a stiff media challenge to the Bush administration’s Iraq war misinformation campaign — was a failure of civic responsibility. With that failure, the professionals forfeited their claim to special privilege or unique public role as challengers of official wrongdoing and ferreters of truth.
As of last June, Rosenberg thought individual journalists could and should still migrate, but he felt it was too late for media institutions.
Reality seems to have borne out Rosenberg’s prediction. Layoffs and buyouts throughout the institutional sector have set individual journalists free. However, the captains of old media are going down with the ship from the aptly named Fleet Street to major North American markets. Brad DeLong, economist at Berkeley, blogs about deeper press corps flaws, citing egregious ground game at the Washington Post, in particular. Something suggests the chicanery DeLong describes isn’t limited to the WaPo.
- Image via Wikipedia
Still, with the – albeit muted – crowing about continually speaking truth to governmental power, etc., the traditional media appeals to legislative bodies for a piece of the financial bailout. Ed Morrissey wants to know what happens when the Fourth Estate becomes a government subsidiary? What does financial leverage in the form of partial to full ownership do to reportage on public officials besides further compromise any assurances of objectivity? See: Pravda.
Commenters on Ed’s post note that the newspaper industry is in worse shape than the auto companies. What sort of ROI would taxpayers get from a financial bailout, then? Others, not totally tongue-in-cheek, speculate that a bailout would merely formalize an ownership agreement that already tacitly exists with the Democratic National Committee, tit for tat with Rosenberg’s point, above. (Ouch).
Like GM and Wall Street investment banks, traditional media have lost the faith of the people. Concerns about government intervention draw NPR and PBS into the fray. The Fairness Doctrine is being discussed in pre-committee legislative circles. Is there sentiment inside the Beltway that old media should be allowed to fail? In favor of an even less than free press?
Abdication of objectivity in editorial content translates into lower revenues, say some. Others believe the internet opened the marketplace to choice. Certainly newspaper classifieds aren’t competitive compared with free web listings. Advertising placement and readership declines would seem to be part of the same death spiral.
With major newspaper stock prices at junk valuations, perhaps free market principles are in play. Belatedly, today’s Star Tribune featured Editor Nancy Barnes’ column wherein she acknowledges everything from the loss of faith in journalism to declining readership and revenues, and resultant cost-trimming, layoffs and buyouts. Her fix? A “fight for the core values of this profession and of this company.”
What would the Strib’s core values be? Well, Nancy thinks it obvious that the Strib’s communities and readers “need trained journalists (aided by the public [ italics mine]) to stand guard as watchdogs over government and business.” I guess they haven’t been doing that very much as of late, or maybe they’ve not been trained until now.
Perhaps trained journalists could have headed off the likes of Madoff or Blagojevich at the pass if they were paying attention to the fundamentals, just like Woodward and Bernstein brought the Nixon administration to a halt. (Maybe less sarcasm…a lot of Strib employees don’t have jobs anymore).
Nancy believes the “blogosphere has brought an infusion of opinions to the world of journalism, but they cannot take the place of journalists who will investigate how all this has happened, why it happened, and explain who might be to blame.” So, Nancy, bless her heart, is offering up more of the same hubris. Left unaddressed in her editorial are the astounding and unapologetic lapses of objectivity evident throughout her newspaper. These lapses regularly leach into the Strib’s so-called objective reporting, as well-documented on a regular basis in . . . you guessed it . . . the blogosphere.
In kind of an “oh, well” tone, the national media (well, mainly the Washington Post) self-examined in a similar fashion after November’s election, finding more than twice the amount of negative coverage of John McCain compared with negative coverage of Barack Obama. Perhaps they should be forgiven their air of breathless anticipation given the historic proportions of Obama’s candidacy.
Nancy Barnes titled her editorial Resolution: To spend more time digging. Rather ironic, as covention would suggest when one finds oneself in a hole that’s the last thing one might consider. Regardless, we think editors like Nancy, or those at any number of Old World media outlets, need more than basic training refreshers should they ever hope to stagger out of the tar pits of their self-created devaluation and resume their search for who to blame.
Related articles by Zemanta
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=d66f29e1-76ed-47d0-a083-d213b5832876)
{ 1 trackback }
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
The Internet has really leveled the playing field for news media, and print is only the method of choice for those who started out reading their news. However, I don’t see why the big firms couldn’t dominate among Internet news providers they way they dominated in print.
I worry about the stationery industry, too. Web 2.0 is nice for a lot of things, but how do we fix our economy when people are saying the car makers, the news media, and so on are obsolete and don’t deserve to be resurrected?
Dot´s last blog post..This and That
Hi Dot – Non-traditionals have a big head start on the traditionals, and there may be nothing left to fund re-tooling. We’ll have to see. As far as fixing the economy goes, some believe that growth from new start-ups and smaller businesses will drive the fix. I saw an example somewhere that referred to start-up days in the auto industry with all the little companies. So maybe this is a cycle and not a phoenix? Too soon to tell. Thanks.
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Sarah
I am very wary of any kind of journalism that does not try to offer both sides of controversy and it seems internet “journalism” does tend to be very one-sided, very dangerous in my opinion.
Jannie´s last blog post..Like a bord on a wire, 2
As one of the laid off journalists of the Great Journalism Purge of 2008, here are some of my thoughts on the subject.
As a newspaper is responsible to its readership, I think its readership is responsible in supporting its newspaper. People have abandoned newspapers, chasing the free content available on the Web. This accelerates a vicious cycle of destruction which will be felt far beyond the newsrooms.
Print media is only as strong as it can afford to be.
With the financial meltdown, advertising plummeted at many papers. Without readership, you are without revenue. Without revenue, staff goes. Without staff, quality goes. You get severe newsroom cuts, oftentimes taking longtime (and higher paid) vets first.
Suddenly, you have rookie reporters with little institutional knowledge reporting on events. And while they might get the superficial basics right, they don’t understand the bigger picture, the history that led up to the current events, and thus fail to connect the dots in a meaningful way for the reader.
They also miss the Story Behind The Story and are left reporting tepid briefs which only further accelerate the loss of interest in the newspaper.
And without enough soldiers in the field, you have more reporters struggling to cover too many beats. Well, you can’t cover several beats with the same kind of quality. It’s impossible. Good reporting is about more than just being there as the news breaks. It’s about developing sources and learning the beat and the players involved. It can take years to master your beat. Many papers are treating reporters like interchangeable cogs in a machine, plugging them wherever they can with little regard to their talent and their strengths.
And without enough reporters, you have more non-local wire stories and less investigative pieces, which are very VERY time intensive. With less investigative pieces, the paper has less ability to hold those in power responsible.
And while some folks would like to believe that newspapers aren’t necessary and welcome the “brave new world” of blogging, I think their excitement is sad. People are so excited to find “Free Content” and dismiss the importance of their local papers.
They fail to see that their lack of support for their local newspaper could hurt them in the end.
Few blogs provide the kind of necessary checks and balances needed to keep the politicians in place. Sure, you have some effective national blogs, but where newspapers are most influential – at the local level, it is nearly impossible to do a quality job covering the news properly without some way to fund it. Once again, it comes to advertising (or SOME source of funding) and putting soldiers on the field.
The people in power have been waiting for this moment for a long time. To finally be able to do what they want to do without anyone looking too closely. Reporters are too busy chasing their tails to spend time delving into issues of great importance. You can guarantee that as journalism declines, corruption will grow more widespread.
Of course if it isn’t reported online, it might take some people a while to figure out just how badly they’ve been screwed.
You go Dave! That was awesome. Really well articulated arguments.
Writer Dad´s last blog post..Writing Without a Niche
Hi sarah – Welcome! You were hiding in askismet. We appreciate the compliment.
Hi Jannie – I agree, blog-based journalism (if you can even call it journalism) is opinion-based. If you’re looking for balance you have to ferret out both sides of the issue on your own. A little different. Thanks.
Hi Dave – Thank you so much for your professional perspective. Your comment could spawn any number of spin-off posts; it’s that meaty. And the pain behind your words for the demise is heartbreakingly evident. Nothing takes the place of the morning paper with a cup of coffee, does it? That’s why Pete and I still subscribe to the Star Tribune, even though we grit our teeth with every read. And we deeply miss the quality writers who no longer grace its pages.
I do think lower advertising revenue is a partial result of editorial policy, though, too. Non-political example: Even in the real estate boom, our local paper was consistently running stories about how scary real estate agents were and how you should sell your house yourself to save money (even though negotiating the process is a nightmare in our highly-regulated state). It’s no wonder that institutional advertising from that sector declined long before the market did. Why would I want to spend precious advertising dollars when in the next page the reporting regularly generalizes that I’m superfluous, unethical, and most certainly not worthy of my fees?
You’re right about back story, history and context. It’s appalling that younger or newer reporters don’t know it, or have access to it.
What I’d like to see is something along the lines of, “Yep, we lean liberal (or conservative). Deal with it.” Instead, there is a pervasive facade of political objectivity that insults the reader’s intelligence. Example: my local paper’s polling organ, the Minnesota Poll, whose samplings are skewed to the point of little to no relationship with electorate demographics. Please, we’re not as stupid as we may seem. Sometimes we can actually discern the agenda in the first read!
You eloquently state how important professionalism is, and how corners are cut nowadays. I’d be curious to know what you think of competency levels in recent J-School grads. And ultimately, I’d love to hear your thoughts on what needs to happen to reverse the death spiral, or do you think it’s too late?
Thanks again for a wonderful contribution.
Hi Sean – Yeah, he’s aces, ain’t he? Thanks.
Advertising is tricky business. All too often, newspapers cave to political pressure in order to put their advertisers’ (or friends of those advertisers) interests ahead of those of the readers. I didn’t work for such a paper, but I know all too well what goes on behind the scenes of those kinds of papers.
Most of the new crop of journalists I’ve met were competent enough. Some better than others, as is the case with all professions. Most of the failings I’ve seen have been at the higher levels (and I’m not talking about my paper here, which I had no problems with). Many of the journalists I’ve come to know complain constantly about the lack of resources available. Many of the people in charge overlook the importance of consistency in the newsroom and have reporters wasting their time chasing new technologies like Twitter, blogging and video blogging. I’m not saying these new technologies should not be embraced, but not at the expense of real journalistic work.
I don’t know what can be done to reverse the course of print journalism in general. I don’t think blogging will replace it, that’s for sure. If print journalism fails, there will be a huge void which will not ever be filled. I do feel that the only media outlets that will survive and prosper will be the ones which pay attention to hyperlocal issues which matter most. People can go online and find out national news from thousands of sources. But who brings you the news that REALLY matters? Your local paper. The biggest hurdle will be finding a way to pay for the bodies to do the work.
Because good work comes at a cost and someone has to pay. The question is WHO?
And far, FAR greater minds than mine are struggling with just that dilemma.
I was a journalist for 22+ years and Blogger Dad is exactly RIGHT about how things are and what has happened. However, it’s NOT the readership that is to blame. It’s the corporate owners.
Instead of cutting profits and pouring the money into training, resulting in better stories, they cut corners, hired inexperienced and young reporters and let them “sink or swim” and skimped on training. As properties were bought and sold the seasoned reporters who were making the living wages were laid off and younger, cheaper graduates brought in.
Journalists have always been arrogant – believing that because they owned the barrels of ink they could control, and did control content and could and did decide what to print and when. When blogging began to gain a foot hold, journalists did not recognize what was happening and instead of seizing the opportunity and blogging themselves and owning the game – they took a different tactic – belittling and criticizing and trying to discredit bloggers. They worked hard for awhile trying to insist some sort of “certification” was needed before someone would “be allowed” to be a “citizen journalist/blogger” thus exposing their ignorance to the history of what “free press” really meant. Their only concern was controlling content and access and denying profits to others. Craigslist kicked ass because THEY gave people what they wanted. ANY newspaper in the country could have done the same thing and buried Craigslist. But, as is often the case with disruptive innovation – no one took the threat seriously or moved to adapt until it was too late. Then, they didn’t act, they simply sat back and whined and bitched and looked for ways to sue him or shut him down. Ha!! They didn’t get it!! No one controls the internet and that was a concept they couldn’t wrap their ink-stained brains around. That is what would ultimately kill them. They continued to believe they were the biggest, baddest thing on the block until it was too late. Then bloggers came along and Matt Drudge and others starting breaking news. Gee….the public started paying attention because some damn fine bloggers were beating journalists at their own game AND making money at it. Suddenly, with the internet and a computer ANYONE could write about anything they wanted. The chains were off, the slaves were free. Now the stories the local media covered up or ignored because it hurt advertising, or because they didn’t understand the complexity of it, or because the editor didn’t find the topic interesting or didn’t have any “art” that would sell the news hole, those stories were suddenly popping up online and readers scrambled to support them. Bloggers – both those who weren’t sure how to monetize their sites and those who did, grew – buoyed by the fact people were listening and paying attention. The best bloggers succeeded – as is wont to happen in a free market. And so it went. The internet grew and journalists ignored it even as their house continued to burn.
Bloggers were a disruptive innovation and old school journalists just didn’t get it. Their corporate puppet masters were still intent on controlling content, killing stories that would make them or their holdings look bad, whittling away at competent newsrooms and pushing the demise of intelligent reporting. Reporters who bucked the system, dug too deeply, spoke out too clearly or opposed the corporate culture were fired or blackballed.
Readers have ALWAYS clamored for news that is hyper-local, exposes local corruption and takes down the bad guy. But somewhere along the line editorial and advertising climbed into bed with each other and the mutant child twins of edivatorial and adveratorial were born. The line between was was editorial/advocacy/promotional was forever blurred as publishers – who preferred to cater to advertisers rather than explore new media and the internet and jump on the opportunity social media was providing – picked easy over hard.
What else could they do? The lazy SOB’s at the corporate level weren’t going to let go of profits and risk the HUGE amount of money advertising brought in until it was too late. They were simply GREEDY.
Even NOW, the media and journalists continue to blame the public, blame the internet, blame advertisers, blame the economy, blame everyone but themselves for the grave they dug for themselves. While they’re blaming and finger pointing and saying, “Oh, you’ll be sorry, you’ll be so sorry,” citizen journalists have taken it upon themselves to do and to learn as they go, about how to expose corruption.
The arrogance of journalists disgusts me. They think their degrees and title mean they’re the only ones who can think???!! Please. The best journalists of our time – like Tim Russert and others – didn’t have journalism degrees. They had a passion for truth and the backbone and balls to report it.
What you say blogger dad is true – and corruption will have a BRIEF heyday, but not much of one. The market is changing and social media, bloggers and citizen journalists are doing that. What do you think all those out of work journalists are going to do? Well – blog of course!!! Any GOOD journalist will carve a niche for themselves and find a following and thrive.
No….People ARE willing to support their local paper IF and ONLY IF it provides the kind of content they CAN’T get online. The problem is, the local papers aren’t doing that. So of course, in a capitalistic society the best innovators win. In Danville the citizen journalists have risen up to create a NEW newspaper by expanding their local shopper into a “real” newspaper because the local daily, a Media General newspaper, has cheated, lied and betrayed their trust. Read my blog about that: http://danvilleva.blogspot.com.
How sad, when the car dealers, real estate people and subscribers turn to a weekly classified and BEG for a real paper with local news that they can support….and the daily continues to flaunt its arrogance. No – the average newspaper DESERVES what it gets. If they’d own their greed, their arrogance and their poor quality, bite the bullet and do what they need to do instead of clinging to the “good old glory days” of what reporting meant – they’d thrive.
I too am a former jounalist here in England and Blogger Dad has it spot on.
I have worked in journalism since I left college (no degree, just a good ole journo exam under my belt) and left the daily paper I worked on as features editor just last month.
I left because I couldn’t bear the direction the paper was being taken. Too many staff cuts, standards slipping and errors were greeted with an ‘oh dear, nevery mind’ attitude.
I felt so badly for the readers. There was a large number of us working there whose main care was what we were giving the readership of the city. As Becky said, we wanted to give them something they simply could not get online. But many in charge had a ’slap it in and slap it out’ policy which I could no longer work with.
Even the photographers there now have been slashed in numbers and all journalists have snazzy phone cameras. Phone cameras! I could have cried when they told us. If you go out on a reporting job, you expect a photographer to be there, not some rookie journo pointing their blackberry at you. Hilarious, but very indicative of the press in England now.
And as far as advertisers. I had constant battles with advertising who insisted we run some piece or other on their client because they spent x amount with the paper. I also had battles when we wanted to run a knocking story and it was a heavy hitting advertiser.
As far as I was concerned, if it was a good story that would interest people, it goes in.
I do agree with Blogger Dad (again!) though. If print journalism fails, there will be a huge void.
Many newspapers seem to have lost sight of what readers really want. And that is a sad sad time for an industry that I adore: you have to as the pay is so poor anyway!
Tara´s last blog post..How to torture mummy