Reporting lives even if newspapers don't

Have fun.

 

Wendy: You are getting your butt kicked. You are the Monty Python character who gets another limb chopped off every time he says something and keeps insisting "it's only a flesh wound."

Rick Stain's responses are proof positive that good reporting will be an issue without newspapers. He's an ink-stained wretch with facts, solid writing skills and a persuasive argument -- and he's one of the guys who will disappear when newspapers give up the ghost.

You keep challenging him to "offer solutions," because you evidently believe that if you keep believing, keep trying, keep thinking that you can fly -- you will grow wings.

Look out below, honey. The ground is approaching rapidly.

 

This is a joke, right? Good reporting will be an issue without newspapers? Please. Good reporting will remain available and I'm kind of tired with the empty threat that suggests somehow we need to "save" newspapers in order to save journalism. Newspapers will sink or swim based on merit. I don't care who owns the system that ultimately delivers the reporters' work. The distribution system doesn't necessarily have to involve people who currently publish newsprint.

 

It has to involve people getting paid for their work. A lot of them. Any ideas on how to make that happen?

 

Good reporting will decline dramatically. But there will be a time when someone comes up with an idea to produce good news and have people pay for it again. The problem now is that people won't pay news since it is a commodity.

Wait for local TV and radio stations struggle because they don't have the AP or the paper to read news from and you'll see a market for online news develop.

 

Flatirons: Let's get this out first:

I'm not your honey.

Secondly, I'm well aware of what's happening. I know there are no guarantees in this. I left newspapers after 25 years because the journalism they've been doing isn't sustainable any longer. I was on the Web for the last four years, and I did indeed see the "ground approaching rapidly."

And it is. For newspapers. They've absolutely blown it. And because of that, that's it for journalists? What a copout!

It's about the news, not the way the news is delivered.

Rick hasn't proven anything except to reiterate what hasn't worked. Web journalism is in its infancy, and you have conveniently written it off after 15 years.

The reporting that revealed alleged recruiting violations with the UConn men's basketball program was done on the Web. Dan Wetzel's one of the best sports journalists out there, and he's never worked for a daily newspaper in his life. He's "proof positive" that it's not the platform, it's the journalism.

All the lame Monty Python references and cheap shots from a hopelessly cynical, jaded perch doesn't absolve you from having to do anything about the future of your profession.

You've tied the professional viability of journalism to a declining newspaper industry, and now you suggest journalism will go down with it.

How abysmally sad.

 

Because you haven't stumbled across some way to turn your little rag into an online profit center doesn't mean it can't or won't eventually happen.

Believe it or not, the Web is still in its infancy and we're in the middle of a long transition period in terms of the way people digest news and adapt to technology. My personal view is that waiting for newspaper publishers to figure this out is a waste of time. It would require huge investments that they don't seem willing to make on top of huge losses that they'll need to absorb to shut down current operations.

There will remain, however, a demand for news and in the end that's all that's really necessary. As the economy improves and the demand increases (much of which will come from newspapers folding, perhaps), entrepreneurs will seize the opportunity and create better subscription and advertising models.

 

You can try to make this about me, or you can open your eyes and see that the NY Times has been trying for a decade and failing. You know more about reporting than the NY Times?

No, it's not.

I'd say we're pretty close to the end of that transition.

Funny how nobody else is stepping up to make this investments, either. Almost as if they know it isn't profitable...

The demand for news can (and will) be filled by sources other than professional reporting.

 

There will remain, however, a demand for news and in the end that's all that's really necessary. As the economy improves and the demand increases (much of which will come from newspapers folding, perhaps), entrepreneurs will seize the opportunity and create better subscription and advertising models.

Be careful, you're about to be sledgehammered for your optimism!

Entrepreneurs are already doing these things; I'm involved with three different journalism startups created by people completely outside the journalism profession. Will these efforts all make it? Not all of them, but some will.

But they're looking for answers, trying to fill the gaps that newspapers are creating. It's exciting to be part of these things, to be looking forward instead of moaning about what's being lost.

 

Actually, it has never been about the news.
Newspapers have always been about being vehicles for ad distribution.
The content might be the most popular thing ever, but if advertising doesn't support it, the vehicle for content delivery — magazine, newspaper — will die.

Much like the Clay Shirky piece from a couple weeks back, we don't know what's going to happen next. The only comparable time in history is when the printing press was invented and people went from oral history to printed history.
Roughly a century was lost as a result because not all the oral traditions were transformed into published words.

So we all want to think that people want news, we assume that it is credible news, but as credible news sources die. They'll be replaced by amateurs and the career path of being a journalist will be lost to the sands of time.

 

I think Shirkey said it best: In a revolution, the old institutions are torn down much faster than the new institutions rise up to replace it.

 

It may not be exciting to moan, but analyzing the facts and presenting them is pretty much what we do. Even when the facts are our own professional death.