Ernie's Plan to Revitalize Newspapers
You said :
I think you and the author are half
right.
First of all, the entire economics of newspapers - and traditional
media - was based on captive audiences and irrational advertising
expenditures. With their monopoly gone and advertisers having both
choice AND information about what works, that model isn't sustainable.
Newspapers have to aggressively experiment to increase their value to
society or disappear. The model you propose is one valid option, but
there are many others.
One I'd love to see is somebody in the news biz get off the high horse
and recognize that the Internet unleashed a flood of citizen
journalists, who at their best do just as much investigation as the
bulk of existing journalists. If the newspaper journalists are really
smarter and more objective than us plebes, why haven't they provided
the sort of cogent, in depth analyses that would sway the blogosphere
which "leeches off them"?
Or is the real problem that their current model was such a slave to
their economics that they've forgotten what real journalism could and
should be?
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Did they ever really know ? It is
possible to have serious doubts.
Not so much with respect to the old
war horses, but concerning many
Johnny come latelies.
But even with the war horses,
many cut their teeth on city desk ( crime, mostly )
reporting. Consequently their
analyses--and patterns of thought-- tend to
have all the strengths and
limitations of that approach, with emphasis
on the weaknesses part.
A city desk approach to , say,
Islam or the issue of abortion or education, etc,
is guaranteed to miss the point
at least 3/4ths of the time.
This said, very thoughtful
comments. My sincere thanks.
Hence the title, to save the
e-mail for my files and possibly
to use as part of another of my
projects.
But I'm not as sanguine about
the Blogosphere as you seem to be.
A lot of it is first rate, of
course, and papers like the LA Times
have a regular section on "hot"
blog commentary. So does
Real Clear Politics, the bible
of many journalists these days
for its comprehensive "depth"
coverage of all important
news stories --from multiple
points of view. Well, maybe
not all, since even Real Clear
doesn't "get" religion or culture,
for that matter it is lame when
it comes to serious science also,
but otherwise there is nothing
like it.
But, yeah, a lot more could be
done using "citizen journalists."
Will that happen ? There I am
skeptical. Those who are "in"
now have a stake in protecting
the status quo and possibly
a worse time with another
necessary function of news decision
makers, spotting new talent
and bringing new people on board.
They tend to see it as zero
sum, not as synergy and win / win.
But there is much to think
about in your reflections.
Billy
