In the current issue of The Nation, John Nichols and Robert McChesney make an argument for government intervention in American journalism’s economic model. “The old corporate media system choked on its own excess,” they write. “We should not seek to restore or re-create it. We have to move forward to a system that creates a journalism far superior to that of the recent past. We can do exactly that—but only if we recognize and embrace the necessity of government intervention.”
Their article goes on to argue for government tax subsidies for newspapers, in particular.
Let’s give all Americans an annual tax credit for the first $200 they spend on daily newspapers. The newspapers would have to publish at least five times per week and maintain a substantial “news hole,” say at least twenty-four broad pages each day, with less than 50 percent advertising. In effect, this means the government will pay for every citizen who so desires to get a free daily newspaper subscription, but the taxpayer gets to pick the newspaper—this is an indirect subsidy, because the government does not control who gets the money. This will buy time for our old media newsrooms—and for us citizens—to develop a plan to establish journalism in the digital era. We could see this evolving into a system to provide tax credits for online subscriptions as well.
None of these proposed subsidies favor or censor any particular viewpoint. The primary condition on media recipients of this stimulus subsidy would be a mild one: that they make at least 90 percent of their content immediately available free online. In this way, the subsidies would benefit citizens and taxpayers, expanding the public domain and providing the Internet with a rich vein of material available to all.
Whether or not you agree with Nichols and McChesney’s assumption that “old media newsrooms” are the institutions best equipped to “establish journalism in the digital era,” the idea of government intervention in the news business is worth discussing—it crops up now and again in the “how to save journalism” debate, and has recently gained some currency in both the House and the Senate. So we wonder what you think about the viability of government support for the news business, and about Nichols and McChesney’s tax subsidies specifically. How might they help journalism? How might they harm it? And would their costs outweigh their benefits?
Do I have to open my wallet for every idiot who can’t cut it? Hows bout we stop subsidizing buckboards in an automobile world?
I know that journalists would love to keep their high 5 low 6 figure incomes for writing 3 or four articles a week but its sink or swim time gents.
#1 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Tue 31 Mar 2009 at 03:02 PM
Look, we've got PBS for television, NPR for radio, but nothing for print. I'd like to see PBS and NPR fully funded and free of corporate control both at the boardroom level as well as the programming booth. And I think there is room in this country for a publicly funded national newspaper or three.
#2 Posted by Aine, CJR on Wed 1 Apr 2009 at 04:00 AM
The founders of this country realized how important the press was to be the watchdog on the other branches. There was free postage for newspapers.
It wasn't the Congress that exposed Nixon and Watergate - it was the power of the press. AND REAL JOURNALISTS who are not censored by their corporate bosses who care more about their advertisers than the public's need to know!
Most people don't have computers and access to anything but that fluff infotainment called TV news, where more time is spent on local sports and weather than ANY other news story! How can we have an informed public who can even decide who to vote for UNLESS THERE IS A VIABLE PRESS??
Can you say fascism??
#3 Posted by Lianda Ludwig, CJR on Wed 1 Apr 2009 at 10:53 AM
>>> I know that journalists would love to keep their high 5 low 6 figure incomes ...
Jeebus, are you insane? The average journalist with 20 years experience makes less than $50,000 in this country. Even at a major metro daily with circulation greater than 200,000, few reporters make six figures. At the Washington Post, the minimum starting salary is about $50,000. Only the New York Times (and maybe the Journal) pays its rank-and-file reporters anything close to six figures.
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Journalist/Salary
That's not to say the business deserves government intervention, which I suppose was your ultimate point, but let's not pretend most reporters are getting rich. You want a job at a newspaper out of college, you're going to start at a paper with a circulation less than 75,000, making $20,000 - $30,000.
#4 Posted by Max, CJR on Wed 1 Apr 2009 at 11:33 AM
If government is to intervene in the newspaper business, this might represent a better solution than any direct bailout. But it also depends on people actually wanting the product and convincing them that a stack of newspapers and an annual tax credit is preferable to the free content they get on the Web.
#5 Posted by Jeff Tucker, CJR on Wed 1 Apr 2009 at 11:53 AM
Thanks for the facts, Max. I was going to root around in Labor Department stats to address that rich journalist canard.
But I want to take a crack at Mike H's larger point: that newspapers--whose prospects as a viable commercial venture are, um, shaky at best--are inherently undeserving of government support. It's not like America is a Rand-ian paradise, where every industry is made to "sink or swim" based solely on its commercial viability. I'm awfully glad that the government is there to support, overtly or quietly, many functions of a healthy society that the market wouldn't necessarily shoulder--transportation, scientific research, health care, etc, etc.
Of course, this can go too far, as with abusive agriculture subsidies or, in my opinion, pro-sports stadiums. But if loosing newspapers really would hurt our civic life--and 74% of Americans in a recent Pew survey said they it would--I don't see why it's so crazy to think journalism deserves a little help.
But Mike H, I hear your point about how any subsidy of newspapers might be like subsidizing "buckboards in an automobile world." While I have read and heard arguments that there is something vital and irreplaceable in the physical newspaper model, that strain of thinking seems sentimental. And it's a sentimentality that props up the many inefficiencies of a once-a-day, dead tree model.
What, to me, is vital, is the information that newspapers--and with few exceptions to date, so far only newspapers--produce. That's what's truly deserving of subsidy, whether the laborious digging and analysis is done by a website, a podcast, an e-newsletter, or what have you.
So when McChesney and Nichols say that their tax deductions might evolve into something that could support online journalism, I want to ask, why wait for it to evolve? Why not set it up that way right from the start?
#6 Posted by Clint Hendler, CJR on Wed 1 Apr 2009 at 12:35 PM
John Nichols and Robert McChesney are confusing journalism with newspapers. Journalism doesn't need saving. There are likely more news outlets than ever in the history of humankind, but they just aren't conventional newspapers. And maybe they don't meet their conventional standards of news.
But newspapers are simply a technology of delivering the output of journalists. It would seem that dead trees are not the most efficient nor fastest method of delivering the news to consumers. And in news, speed matters. Nobody crys for the blacksmiths today and nobody should cry for newspapers tomorrow. People will take their news on what ever devices they like, paper, computers, cell phones, etc.
VR
#7 Posted by Vito Racanelli, CJR on Wed 1 Apr 2009 at 03:00 PM
I think this is a great idea, by the way Playboy is a newspaper right?
#8 Posted by djc, CJR on Wed 1 Apr 2009 at 04:08 PM
What is all that crap we hear from you hate-filled lefties about greed? Christ, there is no geed like liberal greed. Yes, let's bailout the left-wing propaganda machine so it can keep spewing its socialist message/adgenda and lies.
NO GREED LIKE LIBERAL GREED!
#9 Posted by Rich, CJR on Wed 1 Apr 2009 at 04:27 PM
As others have already indicated, tax subsidies for newspapers will not solve the current problems of journalism. For some of us, funding for investigative journalism that the old news media can no longer afford and that the new media are unlikely to carry out is the first priority.
In 1979,when I argued for a more diversified journalism (in my book DECIDING WHAT'S NEWS), I suggested funding should come from a federal Endowment for the News, modeled on the endowments for the arts and the humanities.
I still think it's a good idea, and while government has more reason to interfere with the news than with the arts or humanities, effective protection against such interference can be devised.
Herbert J Gans
#10 Posted by Herbert J Gans, CJR on Wed 1 Apr 2009 at 05:04 PM
Know what it's called when someone hands me a chunk of money then I turn and start speaking to a crowd? An advertisement. Plain and simple.
Just when you think jerko-journos can't lose any more credibility, they pull out their gold mining equipment and start digging. I'm sure the American public will really trust the media when the the Tailwind/Jason Blair/ Bush National Guard memo crowd is taking handouts direct from D.C.
#11 Posted by Daniel Miller, CJR on Wed 1 Apr 2009 at 06:36 PM
I can't see any way this would be signed into law without the government directly paying the media companies. As it is virtually all American newspapers are beholden to their corporate masters, some of whom are already getting bailed out. Now will they also be subservient to the interests of of the POTUS?
No, rather than seeing this happen it would be FAR better to allow the newspapers to fail. They are failing for a reason... main stream newspapers, radio and tv told the American people a basket full of LIES, repeating them virtually verbatim from president Bush's press releases. The new media in this nation, bloggers and such, told the truth. People aren't stupid and they don't like being lied to. No government subsidies will help since they will only encourage more lies.
I am an alumni of the Ernie Pile School of Journalism, a blogger and a podcaster.
#12 Posted by Thebes, CJR on Wed 1 Apr 2009 at 07:31 PM
April 1 ,1984?
#13 Posted by alan annenberg, CJR on Wed 1 Apr 2009 at 08:17 PM
Perhaps we could also provide $200.00 tax credits for journalists to purchase typewriters. The government could then provide free ribbons for life. Newspapers will eventually undergo a consolidation where there will be several national newspapers with local news gathered from a variety of sources. Technology will evolve to distribute the local and national news in a variety of forms. The consolidation will bring costs in line with advertising revenue. Newspapers are not going away, just undergoing a painful restructuring.
#14 Posted by Peter Santrach, CJR on Wed 1 Apr 2009 at 08:50 PM
I have changed my mind on this after reading some more.
A government bail out the newspapers does appear to be a good move though, after all look at the disaster that befell Confederated Slave Holdings after the government refused to help them out.
Seriously though journalism will survive the consolidation and restructuring of the newspaper business. Not everyone is going to make out as winners, but that’s life we have enough zombie banks, lets not pile on with the zombie newspapers.
#15 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Wed 1 Apr 2009 at 09:49 PM
I'm extremely leery, as I assume most people would be, of getting the government involved in newspapers. Talk about the best way to make the media even more hated and mistrusted (although those proposed subsidies would be indirect, they could always be yanked by the politicians).
Barring a sudden surge in Internet revenue, we're probably going to end up relying on the largesse of rich people (which we pretty much always have). Endowments and non-profits are the future for serious labor-intensive journalism if the bleeding can't be stanched somehow.
But there are still things papers can be doing that they're not. They need to try to increase revenues by charging for at least some of their content. That would be easy for The New York Times to do (I'm talking about its news, not its opinion, ye who bring up TimesSelect), but it may be too late for those metro dailies that have already gutted their newsrooms.
But if those metro papers started charging for their Web sites, I believe you'd see circulation declines slow at the very least—preserving some of that much-need print cashflow. You're worth 10 times as much to a publisher if you read the print edition than if you read the online one. But papers charge their lucrative customers hundreds of dollars a year, charge nothing to their least lucrative ones, and incentivize the former to become the latter (Why pay $35 a month for the NYT when its free online?). Genius!
At this point, what do these folks have to lose by throwing the Hail Mary? And no, I don't think it's a good idea to give newspapers an antitrust exemption to form a cartel for the purpose of charging online, as has been proposed elsewhere. People can go elsewhere for international or national news, but where are they going to learn about their hometown? If newspapers can't get $7 or $8 a month for their local journalism—far less than their still-considerable print subscriber base pays—I'm not sure there's much worth saving.
We also need to make it clearer to people the consequences of their choices. You don't pay, someday soon you won't get.
Riffing off of that, here's something out of left field: Lots of bloggers have "tip jars." If you're not going to charge people to read your site, why not stick a PayPal bug at the top corner of every page with a disclaimer that says "Good journalism is expensive. Please consider tipping your local newspaper."
You might not get much, but every dollar counts now. Even crazier: How about spinning off the newsroom as a nonprofit entity within the overall for-profit company? That way your tippers could write off their donations and papers could have PBS-style pledge drives!
#16 Posted by Ryan Chittum, CJR on Wed 1 Apr 2009 at 10:15 PM
Newspapers are as obsolete as big cars. Newspapers and even the venerable Columbia Journalism Review continue to deny their culpability in development of a paper industry that destroyed forests and criminalized alternatives. Now they want to force us at gunpoint (tax us) to continue subsidizing their immoral use of resources by a pro-government propaganda machine? Fine. Let's draw the line in the sand right here.
The work newspapers pursued on the day they died was not journalism -- it was a faint attempt to represent themselves as bastions of journalism while executives and senior editors conspired with government officials to limit public access to public information. Why? So newspapers could remain the gatekeepers who dictate the political direction and the cultural direction of the communities they dominate.
Newspapers shamelessly promoted and profited from the real estate fiasco that wasted billions of dollars on opulent properties too large for any practical purpose. Newspapers turned a blind eye while administration after administration handed financial power to their campaign supporters, at the expense of the general electorate. Instead, we reporters were ordered to right kitch about nothing in particular. I'm glad my readers moved to the Web. I hope they never again rely on that corrupt institution I once supported.
Calls to revive the news industry at gunpoint (that's what they are asking when they dig into our pockets for tax money) are calls for widespread violation of human rights and common law. We the people can handle the news -- the government needs to focus its attention on true transparency, not on subsidizing the propagandists with whom it conspired to claim dim opacity is in fact transparency.
I subsidized the news industry for 20 years with my cheap labor and dedicated service as a journalist. I walked away -- in the midst of a depression -- when it was apparent the print industry no longer had any real interest in serving as a watchdog, but was rather more interested in preserving the lifestyles of senior executives, and the social privileges of their business buddies who pay for their lavish lifestyles.
Its a new world. Newspapers executives can try to maintain their exclusive franchise at gunpoint, but that is crossing a moral line the consequences of which I advise they carefully consider. Populations forced at gunpoint to comply with immoral imperatives inevitably resist with equal or greater force. When unable to effectively resist, they simply begin to dismantle the offending social context by all means necessary.
#17 Posted by Former newspaper reporter who's glad it's over, CJR on Wed 1 Apr 2009 at 10:33 PM
It is said (and Internet searches suggest it's true) that much of Europe's press is subsidized and opinion is generally uniform in being pro-government. One rarely bites the hand that feeds.
There is a national newspaper anyway: the internet.
I work with people who read the NYT _religiously_; they consider WaPo (not Washington Times) "the other side," though it's just reinforcement of opinion, the "progressive" catechism. If both were to go out of business, these people would have to think for themselves. That is, in my opinion, a good thing.
#18 Posted by Roger Godby, CJR on Wed 1 Apr 2009 at 11:49 PM
I'd like to hear more of Herbert Gans's ideas.
The Endowments became political footballs when it became apparent that actual criticism might ensue.
The rest of the commenters, sadly, don't seem able to conceive what a society without journalists would mean; Habermas, and others, is surely right that democracy grew with the growth of the independent press, and the corollary might be, "and died with it." (Of course, CJR's commenters consistently skew right and hotheaded...)
it is certainly true that journalism supported by advertising (or plutocrats!) is in the service of dire abuses of humankind and nature, but it is not, to my knowledge, true, that "much of Europe's press is subsidized and opinion is generally uniform in being pro-government" (Roger Godby), in either postulate or conclusion. (And there is nothing the least 'progressive' : about the NYT, let alone WaPo.)
One ought to be reminded that newspapers have been invented to promulgate a point of view, and the concept of journalistic objectivity is a latter day (imaginary) development. It is not the espousal of viewpoints that is the problem, it is their presentation as "balance.'
A newspaper is a wondrous thing, enlarging the civic conversation often through sheer serendipity, by virtue of presenting stories (not opinion pieces) on subjects the reader may never have considered.
It was depressing this week to read Joshua Micah Marshal smugly averring that he hadn't read a print edition in years. His loss.
Of course there are mighty few newspapers left worthy of the name, and even the serious CJR of 10 or 20 years ago could not stay afloat today. Fluff , shop talk, (and snark) are evidently more fun...
but isn't that what we have People mag, AJR, et al. for?
#19 Posted by brooklyn, CJR on Thu 2 Apr 2009 at 12:52 AM
Re-reading the comments, I think it is worth pointing out that people seem to believe that newspapers are dying SIMPLY because people don't want to read them anymore. If that were true, the AM and Metro business models (and the Village Voice) would not exist. People may not want to pay $1.50 to read the NYT while willingly shelling out more for the business press, which they may think has an instrumental use in helping them make a living.
Obviously newspapers are under threat from online sources, but they are going under because their ability to generate significant profit for corporate owners/shareholders has declined dramatically, which has led to serious cutbacks in staffing and a dearth of news and finally, shutdown. This corporate decision need not be what governs the industry, which is what the point is here.
As to the print question, I find that reading the NYT (my hometown rag) in print means I read far more, and in more areas, than online. since I find articles staring back at me that I did not notice on the website or would not have thought to seek out under their dumb section tabs.
Why, though, am I not hearing anyone saying that magazines— which probably generate far more waste and because of the clay-coated stock, are not easily recycled— ought to disappear? I imagine it is because of the animosity clearly demonstrated here against journalism and journalists, some of it richly justified, but mostly not for the reasons offered.
#20 Posted by brooklyn, CJR on Thu 2 Apr 2009 at 01:14 AM
As the proposal is a tax write off for individuals I wonder what do you do with the poor and others who don't pay tax? And, how many people are using the EZ IRS form? How would that need to changed?
More importantly, I don't see how the gov would control the content of the press if this is an indirect tax subsidy. It seems more likely that this would become something of an entitlement program -- once started, many would not like it to end and would say so rather vociferously.
Yet, even with the broadsheet stipulation, I'm not sure how you would define "newspaper." A weekly, daily, covering local, international? How exactly would you distinguish between a newsy trade journal and a newspaper which is more in line with what I see as journalism's effect on a democracy? Would _The Onion_ be a newspaper or Jon Stewart's notes from the day? Would Al Queda, or the wonderful world of diet water news be counted. How would you argue?
On the other hand, with 90% content online (supported presumably by the cash from the subscriptions), why would most people not just keep doing what they are doing? Where is the incentive for change? Moreover, if you block the pages behind a subscription, what exactly will happen to the news' movement from newspaper to newspaper, not to mention country to country. Does it sound plausible that a news story under "subscription only rules" would be filtered out across the spectrum of blogs -- if so, I again wonder about the viability of having a subscription. Why not just wait a bit and get the news there, especially if TV is involved?
I believe a tip jar is the answer, but not through PayPal. PP is too time consuming for the average person to go through, even with autopay. An industry option method is best (as I have written before here).
Lastly, I would have a personal problem with an NPR or PBS model of the newspaper. I love both, but take much of what they say to be mollified, if you will. As I tell my students, if your audience is several hundred millions of people, you probably need to speak most widely to be understood and desired: I would like my news choice made by me, by someone whom I think understands my concerns, and yet rebuffs me to think differently more often than not. Will this meet the test of a government funded program: here I think of the NEH, or NEA? I don't think I'd agree that the gov really could stay out of control, at least long term. Checks and balances has not worked in either of these programs (or at least I believe I know this).
My two sense (I know ... I know, sorry)
jj
#21 Posted by jj, CJR on Thu 2 Apr 2009 at 07:29 AM
This is is inane on multiple points.To state a few:
The companies are private entities;who benefits from the subsudies the most?Owners.
When someone makes the argument ,"We need these funds for children's health programs",who's going to defeend giving money to Sam Zell et al
The subscription base and readership are dropping for a reason.Too often,MSM isn't seen as relevant.
When I see something cosmically stupid(like this),I tend to say,"Some of my best friends were Liberal Arts majors."
#22 Posted by corwin, CJR on Thu 2 Apr 2009 at 07:55 AM
Commenters seem to generally recognize the danger of letting our sources be our bosses. Missing from these comments, however, is a recognition that with the dawn of digital networking, public information has slipped into the shadows while newspapers sat on their ink-stained hands.
The vast data networks governments use to run their business could be configured to allow the public almost instant access to most public information. Generally, from the local level to the federal level, data is not instantly accessible. Why? This government has declared war on its own citizens. To provide real-time crime reporting, for example, would be tantamount to providing the enemy real time tactical information.
At least one state instead makes it a crime to publish public information obtained in an electronic format. Generally, local, state and federal goverments, with not a whimper from the newspaper industry, have moved their record keeping into digital formats and have not published indexes or directories that would let us even begin to tell a judge, "Here, this is the public portion of this data to which we want access rights enforced."
How then, can somebody claim that "The rest of the commenters, sadly, don't seem able to conceive what a society without journalists would mean." I live in such a society. I tried to serve such a society as a journalist. I am, sadly, all too aware of what happens when citizens abandon their responsibility to oversee, and support watchdogs who oversee their local law enforcement, court and electoral activities. The disease metastasizes into an international problem that makes us culpable for secret prisons, torture programs and extrajudicial homicide.
The cancer inspired much of the public to vote for "anybody but him" without considering the extreme pro-international-finance posture of our new top dog. Our loyal opposition press repeated the "change you can believe in" slogan without exposing a candidate's gross indifference toward a population's need for a geographic stability the candidate was otherwise denied in his gifted life.
World farm culture isn't too big to fail, but the banks that stole all the farmland are too big to fail? And this nonsense is able to fly in a world where there are journalists? I don't think their are many "journalists" working in the newspaper industry any more. This one hopped out of its masters lap and now is taking bites out of masters ankle.
Get this, newspaper publishers, before you beg yourselves into a position where the president can fire you, as he did the GM president, or we the people (with we your former employees as witnesses) must prosecute you, as we did propagandists in the wake of WWII: We will no longer tolerate your abuses. We will not be forced to support you.
#23 Posted by Former newspaper reporter who's glad it's over, CJR on Thu 2 Apr 2009 at 09:29 AM
I don't know. On a day when the major news of the day is tut-tutting and freaking out over IPods! and Touching the Queen!, a triviality of absolutely no consequence straight off the webpage of Politico-Drudge (both are doing very well, I understand), we should wonder exactly what it is about journalism that we want to save. The vast majority of what one finds in newspapers and newspaper websites doesn't have anything to do with saving democracy. You want us to subsidize this?
And let me debunk the preposterous, evidence-free assertion above that European subsidized news agencies are mouthpieces for their governments. BBC is wholly owned by the government and they certainly aren't mouthpieces for the Brits. Agence France-Presse is subsidized and their wire services are top notch and not uncritical of their President. Compare that with Washington Post and Associated Press, both mouthpieces for the conservative Washington establishment, both the WaPo and NYT along with most northeastern Metros, cable and network news have newsrooms that do little more all day long than serve as an echo chamber of Drudge-Politico-driven conservative bilge. You want me to subsidize this?
To the "former newspaper reporter", the president didn't "fire" Wagoner, he asked for his resignation. Big difference. Your paranoic screed is evidence- and fact-free.
I think that a major shakeout of the news industry is due and overdue. Tip jar? I don't think that's gonna cover your expenses. I think a renegotiation and restructuring of internet advertising is probably the answer in the long run. Personally, I don't mind forking over a few buck once in a while to keep a place running, but I'm not going to pay for the majority of what I read on the internet.
#24 Posted by Tom, CJR on Thu 2 Apr 2009 at 10:24 AM
jj, (and, yes, djc): I think you're right: defining what a newspaper is would be one of the great challenges of a program like this. In part, that's why I think such a subsidy would be better if it could be directed to any news organization. (Though defining that might be tough too!)
To the many commenters who assert that newspapers' or journalism's biggest problem is a high error rate (WMD, Blair) or ideological bias ("left-wing propaganda machine"), here's a history lesson that I doubt you'll find shocking. Some (many?) journalists have always made mistakes, been gullible or groveling to those in power. Some have even fabricated stories, quotes, and scenes. And large swaths of readers and potential readers, both conservative and left-leaning, have always thought that newspapers unfairly stood on the other side of the ideological schism. (And, yes, sometimes they've been right.)
But neither that perception of bias, nor those crimes against good journalism, ever threatened newspapers's financial viability before. Paul Starr did an excellent job of laying this out in The New Republic, but to summarize, the crisis of newspapers is not, at heart a crisis of confidence. It is an economic crisis brought on by a technological shift.
Here's a secret: the newspaper business model is only in small part about selling information to readers. It is mostly about selling readers to advertisers. And for over a hundred years, America's newspapers have enjoyed a near-monopoly as advertiser's preferred method of reaching their customers. No longer.
The relationship between good journalism and advertising has not always been easy or perfect. But as the profits that papers were able to extort from business in exchange for the eyeballs that they alone could deliver quickly disappear, we're left with a central question: who will now pay for the that these profits once supported (yes, subsidized), information that democracy needs?
I think there are constructive ways that government--with proper insulating measures--can help to fill some of the gap. Is it the only solution? No. Is it, across the board, the best solution? No.
But we shouldn't be so quick to reject it out of hand.
#25 Posted by Clint Hendler, CJR on Thu 2 Apr 2009 at 10:36 AM
Tom: Yes, endless stories about the Queen's iPod, the First Lady's arms, or Brangelina do us no good. But there are a lot of newspapers out there who will not mention, or barely so, these non-stories. I think the national buzz often obscures the vital work being done on the ground, all across the country.
For an example, read my friend Conor Friedersdorf's excellent blog post on Lynwood, California, and the tale of a newspaper reporter who was able to, with an assist from a dedicated local amateur investigator, help expose major municipal corruption. While the story might have a somewhat happy ending, Friedersdorf's post does not, as it imagines what a Southern California without local reporters might look like.
Midway through he asks "Can local bloggers fill the breach?" His reponse: "The answer is as yet unknown."
After reading the post, I think you'll agree that question alone is reason enough to worry.
#26 Posted by Clint Hendler, CJR on Thu 2 Apr 2009 at 10:59 AM
"Your paranoic screed is evidence- and fact-free."
"President fires GM President" -- that is the fact-free headline former journalist seems to be repeating from CNN and a few other broadcast/cable/print sources.
Hopefully this is not the "Tom" I worked with whose publisher would not allow him to submit to the CJR an atomic-energy-related expose that offended the publisher's long-term family support for that industry.
That Tom continued writing Queen's iPod stories long after the publisher told him to shut up about what really matters. And it would not surprise me to find members of the working press accusing their critics of mental illness -- that's a tactic all-too-familiar among despotic regimes and the propaganda machines that support them.
#27 Posted by Stan Dup, CJR on Thu 2 Apr 2009 at 11:12 AM
Clint,
Yes, of course journos have "always" made mistakes, and will continue to make mistakes. That isn't the issue at all. The issue is the lack of standards, the decline in standards of journalism over time. The refusal of journalists to hold their profession to those standards. The typical, trite journo retort to that very obvious observation is "There was NEVER a Golden Age of journalism." Maybe that's true, but there used to be STANDARDS. Compare Huntley, Brinkley, Cronkite-style journalism to the conceited, superficial dimwits of today: Chip Reid, the Republican mouthpiece and Ed Henry, who believes his job is to MAKE NEWS by gotcha journalism, Mr Gibson who thinks the majority of working Americans are worried about their capital gains tax cut, the gossip-mongering Politico boys.
But these are the national news media. I think regional journalism has a completely different problem. In my view, regional journos are still largely dedicated to their craft and hold to high standards of journalism, their editors responsive to their community. Quality is uneven, of course, across regions. The problem there is different: a few badly managed media companies bought up most of the independently-own local newspapers, gutted them of local quality content and bled them dry. Thus they became less useful to their audience. THAT'S the tragedy of regional journalism. Unfortunately, because of the clowning journos at the national level, you have a less-than-sympathetic audience willing to support mainstream journalism at the local level.
#28 Posted by Tom, CJR on Thu 2 Apr 2009 at 11:38 AM
Tom's appreciation of "journalism" at the regional level is not consistent with mine. I recently called a former editor who was kind enough to remind me how elected officials had "slapped" him for my honest and accurate analysis of a local government-funded enterprise.
My career in local journalism was never without a dictate of bias, delivered with winks and nods from editors. They would not have been appointed editors or broadcast managers but for their winking-and-nodding skills. My tenacity in investigations and skill analysis doomed me to move from paper to paper, and eventually had one paper trying to kick me upstairs, where fealty is not such an urgent requirement as it is among reporters on the ground.
Local journalists mistake their ambition and furtive efforts to provide actual civic service with an operational ability to deliver such service. No matter the reporters' ambition, and the extent to which they remedy their conflicted feelings by assuring themselves of the value of their occassional civic service, publishers and editors have a handle on the overall direction of news and will not allow information in print that offends the interests of their advertisers.
Herein lies the problem. Once upon a time, newspapers could rely on a broad base of local support -- albeit support that came with strings attached. But then main street got in the way of wall street. Mega-corps bulldozed local groceries, hardware stores and car dealers. Newspapers no longer had a base from which they could extort payments to support their limited civic service. Such economy created the tender-dry conditions that only needed a spark to burn the pulp-coloring industry to the ground.
The Internet provided the spark that finally ignited the displaced forest products. All of a sudden -- in less than 10 years time -- we found a technology that could break our dependence on information mediated by business leaders and the governments they buy.
But now we are in a lurch -- old-school news companies dominated training opportunities, and indoctrinated youth from an early age that responsible journalists must pass through the military/academic molding process. Mainstream-media's shrill punditry set the tone for the new information service, encouraging by example production of entertaining opinion disguised as news, or not so disguised.
Mainstream media dropped the ball when it refused to advocate opening of public processes to the new technological age. City and county councils operated without oversight, police records went unscrutinzed and more of our population was incarcerated -- primarily for socio-cultural crimes -- than any other nation. The mainstream dropped the ball because they could not at once be beholden to advertisers and operate in the light of day. They had no incentive to open any more processes than they needed to access to produce the limited version of yesterday's news.
Now, the chickens have come home to roost. Mainstream media, and the "journalists" it employs can deny reality by isolating themselves from the anti-newspaper dialogue rampant on the Internet. Then they can get angry. Next, they'll try to bargain -- that's what this proposed tax is about. Next they need to go through a phase of depression. I guess that's why they call this a depression. What's next?
Newspapers blew it and they lost.
#29 Posted by Stan Dup, CJR on Thu 2 Apr 2009 at 12:29 PM
But back to the subject. Thanks for that link, Clint, to that very painful piece about the sad demise of my own hometown newspaper. But I've said before on this very blog, it wasn't the internet that killed the Los Angeles Times, it was Tribune, long, long before Craigslist came along. Tribune bought it out, took the thing apart piece by piece, hacked it to death, bleeding it dry in the meantime, and sold it out in a fraudulent, highly leveraged deal to a vulgar, ignorant mogul who is profoundly contemptuous of journalism. Zell is just picking over the bones.
I want to note, Clint, that asking
"'Can local bloggers fill the breach?' and the response 'The answer is as yet unknown.'"
misstates the problem. Blogging is the platform upon which some journalism is done. There already are journalists who are blogging about corruption at the local level as well as the national level, and doing magnificent investigative journalism. And, I'd note, that most daily newspapers do nothing of the sort. Railing about the blogging platform itself just muddies the issues.
We need to separate the act of journalism from the platform upon which it is disseminated. It is journalism itself that needs to be saved. Whether that is disseminated on a large pile of newsprint and ink and dropped upon my driveway every morning, or arrives at my computer monitor on demand is less important.
I think what you are really getting at is this: "Can amateurs fill the breach?" I think no, they can't, not in a sustained way. Investigative journalism needs infrastructure. It isn't just the one intrepid reporter that delivers a good piece of journalism. That reporter needs research resources, editors, other people's contacts, the support of his peers and bosses, access to documents and legal resources, protection from powerful people who oppose the inquiry, and freedom from financial worry in the form of a steady paycheck in order to pursue a good story . And experience in the means and methods of the profession. The actual method of delivery and dissemination is a secondary consideration.
Maybe the Huffington model will work. Maybe a Department of Journalism and Government Integrity. Maybe a new model of gaining an adequate advertising stream. There's probably not a single answer or a simple one. But I won't weep for the bankruptcy of Tribune and Scripps and Hearst and McClatchy. In fact, I welcome to it.
#30 Posted by Tom, CJR on Fri 3 Apr 2009 at 02:26 AM
...and to continue on subject, despite typical mainstream-media-style efforts to frame somewhat identical comments as variously both "off-topic" and appropriate,,,
Sombody wrote, "I think what you are really getting at is this: "Can amateurs fill the breach?" I think no, they can't, not in a sustained way. Investigative journalism needs infrastructure."
And I..."old-school news companies dominated training opportunities, and indoctrinated youth from an early age."
Old-school journalism followed the superman model. There were regular reporters who investigated the Queen's iPod, then there were investigative reporters, who might be regular reporters who go in a phone booth and get strong every now and then. "Investigative" journalism was relegated to just that - -something you do out of school, in the closet/phone booth.
But in CJR "blogs" we also learn about the "newspaper reporter who was able to, with an assist from a dedicated local amateur investigator, help expose major municipal corruption". It was the "assist" (i.e. initiative) of a local "amateur" investigator who uncovered the story.
All the "amateur investigator" (i.e. responsible citizen) needed from the L.A. Times was some prominent space in a widely-recognized community venue. The "infrastructure" to conduct the investigation was a simple matter of a citizen doing what any good citizen would do - before we decided to delegate the job to Superman.
It comes down to authority roles dictated in academies from K-12 through J-Schools. If you want to question fairness of school policy, get on the school newspaper staff. Otherwise, asking questions -- even exercising a civil right to access public records -- is treated as inappropriate. The implicit dictate of voluntary compliance with authoritarianism permeates our schools and employment settings because we let our children be trained not to ask the questions it is their civil right and civic duty to ask.
Since it's inappropriate, there is no need for schools to teach their students how to participate effectively in civic processes, how to question an employers unethical demands, or god-forbid how to tell a commanding officer "no-sir, I will not harass these detainees. International law forbids that."
And thus is born the myth that investigative journalism requires infrastructure. Newspapers refused to perform the job of demanding widespread access to public records (are we on topic, Tom?). Journalism schools promoted the notion that investigative journalism, (as opposed to blind-eye journalism?) is a specialized job instead of a routine approach to the work.
The "gate" to civic participation narrowed. Learning how much money your city council is paid didn't become the simple matter of logging on to the Internet and looking at city council expense records -- as could and should be in a free, open civil society. Instead, one needed a siege engine to get beyond the walls newspapers invited governments to build around civic processes.
Indeed, some investigations do require "infrastructure" -- mostly money to keep paying somebody to sift through hoards of information. Because of the gross lack -- at all academic levels -- of training in civic participation, the Web became host to mostly copycat journalism - more opinion page stuff, but not a lot of raw records dumped on line in real time. When real information does emerge from Web initiatives, newspapers turned up their nose, as if it were somehow impure.
As competition grew in the analytic-publication business, newspapers had no reason to advocate electronic access to government. So now we are in a position where no school teaches online civic participation. Why? Schools teach young people how to participate in either a capitalist or socialist/capitalist infrastructure. The idea that one person
#31 Posted by Stan Dup, CJR on Fri 3 Apr 2009 at 09:33 AM
Stan, I'm willing to engage but I'm not really clear exactly what your beef is. Maybe if you clarify and number each of your points. I think we agree on the failure of the regional bloodsuckers who destroyed the local newspaper, and I think we agree that dissemination of the products of journalism can be accomplished online. Are we debating how that's going to be done? And I'm not clear about your position on investigative journalism. Are you saying that a professional journo shouldn't be doing it, or should be doing it more?
#32 Posted by Tom, CJR on Fri 3 Apr 2009 at 09:48 AM
Beef # 1: newspapers failed to demand that governments -- from local to international -- make their records accessible online to the general public. Without constant pressure for systematic openness in public records, "investigative" journalism became a specialty rather than a routine practice.
Beef # 2: newspapers and government-funded media (CPB) failed to recognize the value of "user-generated" content and failed to develop training opportunities for citizen aka "user" journalists.
"Are we debating how that's going to be done?" No, I think we are debating the tone of our participation in this discussion, but probably agree on most points. I was recruited into media in a political arrangement intended to silence my voice in the streets. Now out of media, I have my first amendment rights back. My former publisher drove to work today behind my raised fist outside my sunroof. Coincidence or providence that we met in traffic, who cares. I asked her single-copy street seller at the stop light to tell her we intend to take over her paper and run it as a non-profit. I suspect you are more familiar with less confrontational tactics.
If we are discussing what can be done instead of how to discuss what to do, we might agree on some points. Support non-profit media? Absolutely. Federally fund it? The fed paid my first year's wages as a journalist. Now, after a couple decades of quietly helping solve countless community problems, I'm bringing to your table a conflicted conscience. Is this what you want? Is there a way investigators like myself can continue to serve our communities without becoming so conflicted in our souls because of our questionable funding sources?
And, you ask if I'm saying that a professional journo shouldn't be doing it, or should be doing it more? That's a bit of a false dilemma. I'm saying all hard-news journalists should be investigating. Beat reporters should be required to use digital resources that facilitate routine investigative analysis. But I'm also saying citizen journalists can and do conduct effective investigations.
I'm saying that, as an industry, the news business had better step up and provide its constituents the resources we need to be effective civic participants, including as investigators. I'm saying the way this happens starts with aggressive, unrelenting demands for timely electronic access to public records in digital formats. I'm saying newspapers, or any news company that failed to adopt a proactive stance on open digital records is in the way and needs to be removed.
And finally, I'm suggesting an operational method . I recommend establishment of non-profits, endowed so that they can operate independently of transient funding sources that can influence news direction. And I'm saying we can endow public media by seizing criminal assets, and by persuading defunct news companies to surrender their misused assets to public, non-profit corporations.
Thanks for asking, Tom.
#33 Posted by Stan Dup, CJR on Fri 3 Apr 2009 at 11:16 AM
Why only dailies?
Weekly newspapers are an important source of local news. Other periodicals provide in-depth, investigative and intepretative reporting beyond what most dailies or weeklies can compass.
And why only print media?
I would suggest a tax break for any journalism outlet that agrees to abide by a new and improved fairness doctrine. This need not amount to censorship. It might simply entail a commitment to permit equal time or space in specifically political commentary.
The tax break should be pro-rated according to the space given to news a percentage of total content.
The point in giving a break should not be to prop up a business model, but to recognize that the news reporting benefits the whole community.
#34 Posted by Kathy Snyder, CJR on Fri 3 Apr 2009 at 01:47 PM
Ah, I see. You are focused more on the operational aspects and shortcomings of investigative journalism, from the perspective of experience on the inside, while I am coming from the standpoint of the news consumer without inside knowledge or experience, and what and how information is delivered to me.
Beef #1: I'm in agreement with the goals but as someone old enough to remember J Edgar Hoover, and remember that his reign of terror was the driving force behind the Freedom of Information Act, I'm more willing to spread the blame around. I see an amazing amount of information available online. There should be more, and news media could very well take the lead in demanding more and better accessibility. I view it, though, as a legislative goal. My beef -- one of my many beefs -- is that the major media assisted/conspired in the cover-up of major crimes committed by high government officials in a too-cozy relationship with sources and the political elite. And that they continue to do that. This is the corruption of the major news media.
Beef #2: I agree with this and I think this is one of the major paradigm shifts occurring as we watch and participate. That's exactly what Jay Rosen and Huffington are doing. It is not in the legacy media's interest for citizens to participate in the generation of news content, quite the opposite.
I do believe though that there is an important role for professional investigative journalism as a specialty. Certainly citizens can also embark on, and deliver, quality, groundbreaking investigation as well. But I worry about consistency, that citizens who might do an excellent investigation will lack resources. I'm convinced that the infrastructure I described is essential to take on the Big Boys.
I am thinking of a couple of long-form pieces by the LA Times, which used to be second to none in their investigative stories, so extensive that the story would unfold on page A-1 below the fold over five days or more. One of those was a gripping investigation of the practice of shipping California's wayward youth to unregulated Arizona "boot camps" where they were systematically abused, tortured and sometimes murdered. There was big money and power and political expediency at stake. The reporter dug deep, deep in the weeds and in the end the practice was stopped. The other was a long piece on the utter incompetence and malfeasance of the Child Support Division of the District Attorney's office. Again, powerful players and big politics at stake. At the end of that piece, the voters took over and did their duty. Excellent journalism that made a real and measurable impact in my community.
I submit that those kinds of stories require institutional support in a big way. I also submit that not every reporter, or citizen, has the specific talents required to conduct that kind of investigation. These pieces didn't result in any kind of profit for the newspaper or for the reporter, quite the opposite in fact. Many of these pieces result in lost revenue; they are extremely costly in time and resources and legal fees, and can actually result in lost subscribers.
I don't argue that all reporters shouldn't be looking deeper and wider than their cozy sources in their reporting, they should. I view that as hard news delivery, a different specialty than investigation.
How to fund that essential kind of journalism is the big question. Your observations about the advantages and dangers of different funding streams are squarely on point. I don't have a good answer, of course. We shall shortly see, I think, whether the public, non-profit corporation model will work. That's what Huffington is setting up, and that's what ProPublica is doing.
#35 Posted by Tom, CJR on Fri 3 Apr 2009 at 02:26 PM
Tom -- it turns out we are more or less on the same page with this.
On beef# 1, I would say expanding access should not just be a legislative goal, but a strategic goal. That can mean education of professional and lay journalists in practical application of the strategic goal, persuasion of public agencies to efficiently segregate and deliver public information, aggressive enforcement both by public agencies and by media interests, and legislative action to expand open records requirements and enforcement opportunities.
(btw, I remember J Edgar well. Especially with regard to CointellPro -- a story that broke after brave citizens did what brave citizens do when their government spies on them - they broke into a government office and exposed the corruption.)
My take-home point, besides caution in selecting who we let fund our civic watchdogs, is that money and infrasctructure aren't the main barriers to effective reporting. Closed-government practices and a failure of media leadership to engage the public in the cause of open government makes it difficult for media to make a case to benefactors, creating the business-model problems that are killing the profession.
When tenacious media leaders raise the level of expectations for depth and breadth of news coverage, we can make an honest case to funders that:
"If this is truly a service you use, call now and pledge your support. If you can't pledge at the Sustaining Member level, that's okay, we know times are tough. But without effective journalism, times will only get tougher. If supporting responsible public media is important to you but you're just short of cash like a lot of us are these days, call now and pledge your support at the Basic Membership level. No matter what level of support you can afford, or even if you don't support us, as long as your neighbors continue to chip in, we promise to be here for you, digging into government files, watching legislators behind-the-scenes activities and telling you about the trends and happenings that effect your life."
Wouldn't that be such a better interruption to the news than a segue from taqx-funded war coverage to Humvee commercials? And we could do it without taking tax money away from more important causes -- like health-care, the deficit, crumbling brick-and-mortar infrastructure and expanding access to government for all citizens. Most importantly we could do it without expanding government meddling in editorial issues such as fairness.
#36 Posted by Stan Dup, CJR on Fri 3 Apr 2009 at 05:24 PM
p.s. -- the funding pitch is an example of course, but direct appeals can work in Web/print as well as in Web/video formats.
#37 Posted by Stan Dup, CJR on Fri 3 Apr 2009 at 07:18 PM
Stan, yes, it appears we are on the same page.
Ah, we've had our own 21st Century COINTEL for going on 9 years now. Is the NSA still spying on you, me, Kathy and Clint? We don't know of course. For 9 years the legacy media opted for the comfort of their own cozy sources, whistling past the graveyard to out-amd-out complicity in the illegal spying of American citizens. That's why I snicker with contempt at all "watchdog press" nonsense that they beat us over the head with in the panicky demise of their industry. Well, where were you "watchdogs" when it counted? Cause you sure weren't watchdogging when we needed you!
But yeah, Stan, citizens broke the story of the original FBI spying, but the media took hold of it and reported it. That kind of stuff needs a critical mass of attention in order to get results, yes? You know, SOMEONE reported the NSA spying, but it never reached critical mass, because too many journalists were in bed with their operative sources. It was more comfortable for them to ignore it. And ignore it they did.
So I'm right with you on the strategic goals and in the lack of media leadership. (ref your "take-home point") PBS was better than most, but of course their corporate board was salted with rightwing operatives. Still, it's a model that shows a lot of promise, I think. Tax incentives, government subsidies, for-profit models, partial funding by subscription. You know, CNN and the other cable news are partially subsidized by cable subscriptions. They aren't however, to be held up as a model of good journalism, though.
I'm just not sure how we get there from here. We'll probably end up trying them all, and see what works. It will be interesting.
#38 Posted by Tom, CJR on Fri 3 Apr 2009 at 08:46 PM
The challenge is to subsidize an essential civic service without subsidizing more malpractice on a grand scale.
#39 Posted by Stan, CJR on Fri 3 Apr 2009 at 11:54 PM
malpractice on a grand scale: http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2009/03/journalisms-culpability-in-the-economic-crisis/
#40 Posted by _, CJR on Fri 3 Apr 2009 at 11:59 PM
Well, here is a story that is germane to the discussion of public funded journalism, a developing story where Frontline producers distorted the journalist's piece Sick Around America under pressure from the health insurance industry. The journalist, T.R. Reid, ended up removing his name from the piece and quitting. Part of this story was reported elsewhere on this blog by Trudy Lieberman but now it seems more of the scandal is emerging. (No link to Trudy's piece "Sick Around America: What exactly was Frontline trying to say?" because of moderation issues.)
I hope CJR will report further on this emerging scandal. I hope it isn't too hot for The Editors to handle.
Was Frontline Documentary Edited to Reflect Health Insurance Industry Interests? | Crooks and Liars
#41 Posted by Tom, CJR on Sat 4 Apr 2009 at 03:50 AM
It remains to be seen how the old-school industry leaders like CJR will respond to indictments of their industry. So far, in the coolest parts of my mind, I've not pieced together a legal basis for prosecution, but we clearly have a moral basis to demand the resignation of most of the "too-big-to-fail" news industry. Newspapers and the trade publications that support them are eager to report anger in the streets, but they are not always as willing to host dialogue among angry constituents and former employees who are demanding that they hand their newsrooms over to qualified journalists.
No need to single them out here - those to whom the details matter can find the facts, but one leading state newspaper closed comments yesterday on an article about a governor signing an ethics bill when comments started to stack up against the governor, who has a history of interfering with press personnel matters in his state.
Bottom line, we can't move into a recovery phase with this diseased industry until we address the disease. If we accept that gross malpractice among the press corps is in part responsible for the economic collapse, we must first restore a free press -- wait - let's just lose that obsolete word -- we must create free public-information networks worthy of public and private subsidy.
My adamant theme in this dialogue you've been so bold and courteous to continue, Tom, is that this industry is not just dying -- it's killing civil society and we must act now to address the problem.
In absolutely clear terms here's our problem -- we can not safely triage and treat wounded enemy combatants (the media owners who have warred against free society) before we disarm them. And as we learned for Iraq, we can't disarm a country's civil authorities without having an alternative ready to step in and provide the service.
For you, dear friends and readers, I'm telling you as a former regime loyalist, there are no cops(reporters) on the street. That face on the six o'clock news is no more reliable than Baghdad Bob. Security in your neighborhood is now entirely up to your local defenses. We need to get something in place and now.
#42 Posted by Stan, CJR on Sat 4 Apr 2009 at 11:02 AM
I'm more optimistic about journalism than you are, Stan.
Let's stipulate that on-air, cable, network, and local, infotainment-peddling is not journalism. Journalism doesn't happen there. At best, you have programs hosted by newsreaders (a more accurate Brit term for the likes of Williams and Gregory and Couric) and at worst you have the people who host on-air split-screen cage matches between ideologues, like Campbell Brown and Wolf Blitzer. Let's just stipulate that these on-air personalities, Ed Henry, Chip Reid, Jake Tapper, have no standards of journalism and no standards of accountability and in fact are not journalists.
Let's also stipulate that the poorly managed news industry conglomerates, Scripps, Hearst, MediaNews Group must die a natural death, and soon. It has not served the country well for so many locally owned and operated newspapers to be scooped up into these badly-managed corporations.
And let's stipulate that the news industry is due for a shakeout; there is too much dead wood and layers of news people who are no longer willing or able to do their job within acceptable norms and standards. Too many self-serving journalistic "conventions" that only serve insiders, journos and their sources, and not their audience.
That still leaves thousands of honest, hard-working (mainly print) journalists working every day and doing a good job or wishing they could do their job better. I think we still need them, and I think that much of what they do cannot be replaced by people with other kinds of day jobs. We can HELP them do a better job, maybe they can help citizen journos too. Maybe a big, nasty shakeout will bring them back to the standards of journalism that we citizens expect and they should expect of their peers.
I think that in the end that we will probably see that all three models, government subsidies, the non-profit model, and for-profit funding will be tried with some, but not universal, success. Maybe I'm too optimistic. What do you think?
#43 Posted by Tom, CJR on Sun 5 Apr 2009 at 08:28 PM
It's primarily the for-profit daily print industry that is collapsing. And they weren't bastions of pure journalism compared to electronic media on the day they died.
Cable and broadcast aren't any more or less info-tainment than the daily news, and we get about as much or more investigation and analysis in electronic media - especially in-depth documentaries -- as we get in print. It's probably local and regional news that is suffering most from the demise of print.
Saving print isn't the answer. Learning to work on the Web is the answer.
We're in a new technological era and those rooms full of journalists need to realize where their readers have gone. Web allows far greater depth, breadth and immediacy than print, and provides all the sound and light of broadcast/cable. We just don’t have time to step away from our monitors to stain our hands flipping pages to find the “jump page.”
Newspapers had their chance to start the race into the Web from the poll position. Now, refusing to see the writing on the wall, they are in the last place but it's not fair to change handicap once the race has started.
The only reason we needed newspapers, other than that they were all we had, was that they provided a central place to go to for all-things-local. They tended to define and unify communities. They were gatekeepers.
We've more or less crashed the gate now with the Internet and our subsidies need to target building the new order, not prop up the old regime.
Sure, we'll continue to have various public subsidized, private subsidized and for-profit media. But our public subsidies need to be focused on supply side -- getting raw materials to journalists and raw information directly to the public.
Private foundations will do well to put their money into building responsible, sustainable Web news and information services, developing a new generation of digital-savvy journalists, and equipping journalists to work in the Web environment.
For-profit media will need to learn to profit on the Web, or somebody else will.
#44 Posted by Stan, CJR on Mon 6 Apr 2009 at 12:10 AM
Well, I don't think I claimed that anything was a bastion of pure journalism. And trust me, I'm not SO optimistic that I think there ever will be either.
Yes, the print industry is collapsing. But that's not the same thing as journalism. Newspapers have been the vehicle to disseminate the products of journalism. So, fewer people want that product delivered on dead trees to their driveway every morning. More people prefer to get it at their own convenience in a more timely, diverse, and convenient format, i.e. the web. It's still journalism. Yes?
I vigorously disagree with your contention that there is no difference between the product of television infotainment and serious journalism, Stan. Sure, there's a lot of worthless stuff being produced by "print" journos -- Politico, nuff said. (I distinguish the written, or enduring, stuff from the infotainment that floats through our airwaves via the spoken word.) But I try very hard to distinguish serious journalism from the bilge produced by the likes of Politico, the political desk at Washington Post, Time Magazine, and like publications that flaunt their lack of substance.
And yep. Editors are distressed over the loss of their gatekeeper role. That is one giant leap for mankind. But I think our difference is this: you are focused on investigative journalism, and I am largely in agreement with you there. But I am also interested in the day to day, non-investigative journalism: wire reporting, city, foreign policy, beat reporting, stuff that goes to recording the mundane, the honest and uncorrupt, the stuff that's happening around us that doesn't require investigation so much as just telling us what happened -- who what where how and when. That stuff is important too.
There is a lot of movement in training experienced journos to work in the web environment. You can follow how that's going via Romenesko. Grants, scholarships. You can take hope in that. The evolution is in full swing.
Here's a little treat to read. Roger Ebert's Journal: Archives. The comments are great, too.
#45 Posted by Tom, CJR on Mon 6 Apr 2009 at 12:57 AM
Tom, it's that day-to-day stuff my editors conspired to withhold from readers. Much of that can be more or less self-organizing, if we could make governments participate somewhere near the level already required by law.
Take crimereports.com. For decades, cops-agate has been an entry-level journalism job. That meant walking into the cop-shop, sifting through incident reports and making notes of names, addresses, charges and pertinent facts. Now, larger agencies file those forms electronically. Even when the data is extracted from print, the rational way to gather the data would be to enter addresses, geolocate the addresses and plot the crime reports.
Well, turns out a lot of cops and a lot of Realtors don't want that done. Cops -- at least in some cases say publishing crime data is like telling crooks where the good jobs are. (Others strongly advocate public exposure of crime data as a law enforcement tool). Realtors claim it makes neighborhoods look "bad" and devalues property in those areas.
But now along comes crimereports.com. Any police agency can "publish your crime data easily." Except just one thing. It's not their data. It's our data. And another thing. It's not their choice what we do with our crime data. That is our choice as constituents who own our public information. So if we wanted to, we could demand of our city council that part of their budget include publishing crime reports automatically at crimereports.com, or on another similar service.
Multiply that by each non-investigative job. City council agendas are now online. Proposed city council ordinances should be online. If your local reporter is reading the reports, reporting details and not giving you a link to the full language, they are not telling you the news, they are restricting the news in the name of analysis. It wasn't this way 10 years ago. We couldn't make the case that reporters (or their employers) must provide the public similar access to government as the reporters enjoy.
That's the shift we're witnessing -- mundane, day-to-day news is no longer the exclusive purview of traditional news organizations. Traditional media didn't advocate strongly for a move to a more expansive information network, and now they are poorly equipped to function, much less to profit in the now expanded information milieu.
Besides the input-side, traditional media ran against technological changes on the output/delivery side. They were stuck in the big-machine model, buying larger and larger presses that provided them economies of scale in their print balance sheets. Now, consumers want hyper-local and micro-targeted information these large presses aren't capable of providing.
So print is left empty on two counts -- they failed to stay up to speed with emerging analytic tools that would let them better engage their constituents, and they then failed to identify and develop print technology that would let audiences take in-hand, on pulp, just the part of the "paper" they wanted to read.
#46 Posted by Stan, CJR on Mon 6 Apr 2009 at 11:48 AM
You are right, Stan, that we don't need professional journos to write up city council meetings and stuff like that; interested people can watch the event or the replay on TV. Re crime - having been robbed I'm not in favor of exact addresses being publicly available; block-level is fine.
But look. I don't want to know just what is happening in my little backwater town. I want to know what is happening in other places, across the nation and across the world. And I don't have the time or the inclination to monitor the local bloggery in places like Pittsburgh and L'Aquila, Italy just in case something of interest occurs there. And when something of interest DOES occur, I don't want to take the chance that there isn't a network of local bloggers volunteering to monitor this stuff and write about it. So we get the basic information off the wire and the more in-depth stuff from the local reporters. And that's the way I want it.
I'm not arguing for the preservation of newspapers but of professional journalism. But sure, let's do shake out the deadweight -- how about we start with the White House Princess Corps. Now there is a useless group of people, sitting around all day waiting for Gibbs to tell them something, and scheming on ways to "make news" to get their mugs on TV. Let's station a couple of wire guys at the White House and send the rest of those clowns to cover the zoo, where they fit in.
You are right, they should have spotted the change sooner and acted sooner and all that, but you can bet they are acting now. We'll see how it turns out.
#47 Posted by Tom, CJR on Mon 6 Apr 2009 at 03:08 PM
I won't be betting very heavily on old-school media's progress in the catchup game. If you want my tip on when to start doubling down on good hands, wait until some paper starts running a "Today in the blogs" column. Look for Web first content and especially look for credible user-generated content coming from users through the Web and then into print. Look for papers offering training opportunities -- maybe online clinics for online citizen journalists.
Then you'll be seeing the results of some blood returning to the washed-out fearful faces of today's print industry.
The shift I'm describing is moving newspapers and other media away from the data-mining industry and emphasizing their progress in data-analysis and data-aggregating. So far, newspapers have done little more than ridicule new miners, saying instead "But those were our jobs." This is not atypical of any community where new workers arrive.
#48 Posted by Stan, CJR on Mon 6 Apr 2009 at 03:19 PM