I would have liked more information about this story:
Shrinking news rooms hurting quality
The many and deepening cuts at newspapers are starting to take a toll on their content, according to a study being released today.
The challenge newspapers must meet immediately is to find more revenue on the Internet, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s study.
“America’s newspapers are narrowing their reach and their ambitions and becoming niche reads,” the study said.
A friend, occasional reader, and former newspaperman has commented that bloggers such as myself are like the shrews who survived and thrived at the time the dinosaurs died off. Newspapers, of course, being the dinosaurs in this metaphor.
Maybe some bloggers would survive independently of the traditional newspapers, but I don’t do much in the way of original reporting. I rely and expand upon the foot leather of the journalists who actually go out and get the news. Newspapers will die, however, to the extent they abandon this function. The other stuff put out by newspapers can generally be produced by amateurs without a lot of loss of value — editorials being one of the primary examples. Opinions are like certain body parts in that everybody has one.
You are exactly right, and everyone except newspaper owners seem to understand this. The most infamous example was the now-rescinded decision of the New York Times to put its op-ed pages behind a subscription wall. It’s been said by many in recent months and years, but there is a wealth of free opinion writing all over the web that is more in-depth, responsive, and felxible in timing than a calcified op-ed page. But the actual reporting of the news is something that amateurs don’t have the time or resources to do. So what do newspapers do? Cut back on reporters, rely on wire service, and try to do half-baked imitations of the “real” blogosphere. It’s maddening.
The Indianapolis Star was never a great newspaper, but the Sunday Star makes me want to cry. Its content is predictable: one indepth front page story of local interest; a bunch of really, really truncated wire service stories dwarfed by matress ads; a slightly meatier sports section, complete with some Kravitz posturing; some good gossip in Behind Closed Doors; and a Ketzenberger column. And that’s it. If I lived a bit closer to a Starbucks I would probably opt for the Sunday NYT if my wife were willing to part with the ads.
Funny, you don’t LOOK shrewish…
Doug:
I would ask your blog readers not to focus on the appearance and temperament of the metaphorical “shrew” but on its adaptability and relative power versus the other creatures in its world. Newspapers will go the way of the buggy whip and the inter-city passenger train, but journalism can and will survive. See Politico.com where former Washington Post and New York Times pros do great shoe-leather journalism with no printing press.