Faces for a day of fasting
February 27, 2009, 8:09 am
Posted by David Gibson
Job losses are mounting everywhere, and this sight–employees of The Rocky Mountain News reacting to word that today’s edition would be the last for the 150-year-old paper–is all too common. But I hope I always find it deeply affecting, and less common.
David, it is terrifying, not only to contemplate the loss of so many jobs, but the demise of what surely is still an essential linchpin of a functioning democracy: the daily newspaper.
Without newspaper reporters and editors to hunt down stories and ask awkward questions, how will our society continue to function? I fear the answer is, ‘Much more poorly than previously’. Are television and blogs the new substitutes? Can a good newspaper reporter support her family these ways?
Pew released a study on broadcast/print/Internet as major sources of news, and the uptick in Internet as the preferred medium, especially among young readers, in just one year is pretty astounding.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1066/internet-overtakes-newspapers-as-news-outlet
So far, newspapers have not successfully made the transition to the Internet because there isn’t the ad revenue to support the newsgathering effort that print ad revenues once did, and it’s that inability for a news organization to support newsgathering that’s so troubling, as Jim notes above.
Poynter Online has a section devoted to Online and Multimedia trends in journalism. Featured over there now is a bit by Jason Fry of the WSJ who revisits what he said about trends in e-journalism nine years ago.
http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=159002&sid=26
He sees some of the challenges as exciting and likely to stimulate innovation. But, God love him, he’s only 40. Young people are always so optimistic about change.