GOODY TWO SHOES: Media Irrelevancy – A Self-Inflicted Wound: Part II
Interviewed for an article examining some of the root causes of the sorry state of the newspaper industry, Fitch Ratings analyst Mike Simonton tells The New York Times “In 2009 and 2010, all the two-newspaper markets will become one-newspaper markets, and you will start to see one-newspaper markets become no-newspaper markets.” But a recent Pew study suggests that if Simonton’s dire prediction comes to pass, many Americans would shrug their shoulders and move on with their lives:
As many newspapers struggle to stay economically viable, fewer than half of Americans (43%) say that losing their local newspaper would hurt civic life in their community "a lot." Even fewer (33%) say they would personally miss reading the local newspaper a lot if it were no longer available. …
Newspapers have long struggled to attract younger readers. A recent analysis of newspaper readership by Pew Research found that just 27% of Generation Y - those born in 1977 or later - read a newspaper the previous day. That compares with 55% of those in the Silent or Greatest Generations, born prior to 1946. …
Many of those who say the closing of the local paper wouldn't make much, if any, difference in their communities note that there are other news sources available or criticize the newspaper's quality. About three-in-ten (29%) say there are other ways to get news, including television, radio news and the internet. One-in-five say the quality of the newspaper is poor, while 5% say it is biased. One-in-ten say they don't read the paper and almost as many (9%) say they don't think other people read it either.
Newspapers are trying to stave off the inevitable by forcing employees to take unpaid leaves, going non-profit (though one could argue it’s just a formality), closing down print editions and publishing online only, pooling newsgathering resources amongst sister papers and forming content-sharing co-operatives with rival papers in the same city or region. Some media critics think these cost-saving measures will adversely affect journalistic quality, reports trade magazine Editor & Publisher:
But is there a decline, both in the competitive drive that sparks good work, and in the reporting, by fewer people working a certain beat or issue? Some journalism observers believe so. "The real loss is in the number of different eyes watching the same thing," says Keith Woods, dean of faculty at The Poynter Institute. "The overall loss is to the public." …
"Competition is an absolute necessity," says Neil Henry, interim dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. "I recognize the economic necessity. It is newspapers trying to do the best that they can. But it is doing more with less — and less. You can't keep going down this road."
Doug Clifton, who edited the Plain Dealer in addition to the Miami Herald, agrees. "It reduces the distinctiveness of each publication, even if it is things that are readily available to AP anyway," he says. "So many of these things have higher symbolic value than they have actual value."
Adds Woods of Poynter: "We can be sure in the grand scheme of things that the ability of journalists to be watchdogs is reduced." …
There is also a feeling among some editors that the internal battle for scoops and independent reporting of a story is not as important to readers. Says [Concord Monitor Editor Felice] Belman, "I don't know if readers pay as much attention to bylines as we do."
Here’s a flash to the newsroom: Bylines matter only to writers and their mothers. And this mea culpa by Politico’s Josh Gerstein disproves the shopworn arguments about having more eyes watching and competition fueling earth-shattering scoops:
The media is gleefully joining those painting Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner as a babe-in-the-woods for not realizing the political import of the bonuses. The pundits also have branded Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) a dupe for deferring to Treasury's request for legislative language that exempted pre-existing bonus deals, like those at AIG, from new limits on payouts to employees at companies getting government bailouts.
Well, add one more name to the list of dunderheads who didn’t see the political firestorm coming: mine.
Back on February 16, I actually read the language of the Dodd amendment to the stimulus. I even noticed the now-infamous clause exempting contracts signed before February. …”
In my defense, I can only say that in a story I wrote that night I did put in a half sentence that pointed out the exemption that badly burned both Dodd and Geithner this week. …
Unfortunately the article was a tad too long for the print version of POLITICO, so that clause hit the cutting room floor. …
But as we prepare to string up Messrs. Geithner, Dodd, and others, maybe those of us in the press need to be asking this: What did we know and when did we know it? …
[T]here was no frenzy of coverage, and certainly no confident predictions of all-consuming public anger.
Gerstein suggests that his fellow journos “keep away from mirrors for a while, lest we catch a glimpse of some other veteran Washington players who didn’t see this one coming.” Kudos to Gerstein for his honesty and unflinching self-appraisal.
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