The fate of newspapers
May 11, 2009, 12:37 pm
Posted by Joseph A. Komonchak
Howard Kurtz, who covers the press and other media, has a column in today’s Washington Post in which he blames the lack of imagination on the part of newspapers for their precipitous decline which he thinks may be irreversible.
The era of the general metro newspaper is probably over. Plenty of blame to go around: stodgy management, too much debt, CraigsList, etc.
In some ways, of course, this isn’t a great crisis: There are and will be plenty of other places to get restaurant and movie reviews, sports, event listings, classified ads, opinion pieces, editorials, and basic local news items. But as Frank Rich pointed out in the Sunday Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/opinion/10rich.html?em), who’ll want to invest in covering Afghanistan, or spend months trying to uncover some dark corners of government? Some people say investigative reporting will have to be supported like the nonprofit public radio model (e.g., http://www.propublica.org) but I wonder if the money will be there.
I fear I do not bemoan the decline of the newspapers. We have survived the merging then closing of such [NY newspapers] as The Journal, The American, Daily Mirror, Telegram, World, Herald, Tribune, .. [I think I've forgetten a few].
There is great variety in such as the news available on Google, and from many countries.
But, of course, in NYC there remain four daily newspapers, with three or four others in the nearby suburbs. Most cities have only one now. And what about the claims made about investigative journalism? Who will sponsor it, finance it?
Government will most certainly not sponsor investigative journalism.
That would be anathema!
…..unless Congress set up a model based on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, perhaps?
Perhaps some of the really rich philanthropists will establish foundations that sponsor investigative reporting. They might be crosses between research universities and newspapers; They could share data, as Associated Press already does. Resources could be made available to the reporters to carry out the investigations. Smaller local fortunes might be dedicated to local news that local TV can’t afford to do. We already have the thoroughly independent Consumer Reports that investigates commercial products. We could have City Hall Reports and State Department Reports, etc., etc., etc.
Or we the people could support such foundations with our little contributions. Or use both sorts of financial support.
The Michigan State J-school sponsored a summit on this topic yesterday, “In Search of a New Journalism.”
Mix of academics and those in the biz, especially those who have experimented with “new media.”
FWW, the program is (or will be) archived at:
http://spartantv.cas.msu.edu/Site/Spartan_TV.html
Joe, here is what you need:
http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-DX-Amazons-Wireless-Generation/dp/B0015TCML0/ref=kin2w_ddp
Maybe newspapers can survive without the paper.
Thought the NPR report this morning on this was most interesting (on government role.)
What think you of newspapers as non-profits? Any real hope???