It is our fault
Paul Farhi of the Washington Post issues a resounding apologia for journalists in the American Journalism Review, arguing that the fall of newspapers isn’t their fault. Then Roy Greenslade leaps up with a resounding hear! hear! They echo a defense earlier this year from Adrian Monck (who had decreed, “The crops did not fail because we offended the gods”).
Though I respect these three men, I must call bullshit.
The fall of journalism is, indeed, journalists’ fault.
It is our fault that we did not see the change coming soon enough and ready our craft for the transition. It is our fault that we did not see and exploit — hell, we resisted — all the opportunities new media and new relationships with the public presented. It is our fault that we did not give adequate stewardship to journalism and left the business to the business people. It is our fault that we lost readers and squandered trust. It is our fault that we sat back and expected to be supported in the manner to which we had become accustomed by some unknown princely patron. Responsibility and blame are indeed ours.
Farhi’s rationalization on behalf of his fellow journalists makes many bad assumptions and blind turns and Greenslade only follows him down those alleys, piping in with (my emphases follow) an “unhesitating answer” of no to accusations of journalistic guilt. “There cannot be any doubt that journalists themselves … cannot be held responsible for either the financial woes of the industry nor for the public turning its back on the ‘products’ that contain their work.” He piles on: “They are blameless.” They have “no reason to feel guilty…. It isn’t our fault…. The truth is that we are being assailed by revolutionary technological forces completely outside of our control…. We journalists are not [his emphasis] paying the price for our own (alleged) failures…. you are not the cause of the current calamity.”
The hack doth protest too much.
Farhi assumes that a newspaper is a well-defined product that is no longer supported by classified and retail advertisers and that’s not our fault. He acknowledges that newspapers should be updating their sites, adding Twitter, social networking, Google Maps, and more video. But he ignores the greater need and opportunity to rethink and reinvent journalism itself.
The internet does not just present a few glittery toys. It presents the circumstances to change our relationship with the public, to work collaboratively in networks, to find new efficiencies thanks to the link, to rethink how we cover and present news. No, the essence of the problem is that we thought the internet represented just a new gadget and not a fundamental change in society, the economy, and thus journalism.
By maintaining the newspaper and its newsroom as essentially static entities, Farhi also makes the common and dangerous assumption that their budgets are also fixed: They are what they are because they always have been and so that’s what they need to be. So it’s not their fault that they need to be supported at that level. But newsrooms are terribly inefficient and too many of their expenses were fueled by ego. We bear business responsibility. That is why I am teaching business in a journalism school, so we can be better stewards.
Farhi glosses over — in an unjournalistic way, I’m afraid — the state of the business and its relationship with its public. He brags that almost 50 million Americans still buy papers and so, he argues, readership is not the issue. But circulation is down more than 14 percent since 1970 and since then population has risen by 50 percent, so the adjusted loss is 74 percent. If steady, circulation should be 92 million today. Penetration is roughly half what it was: a mere 17 percent vs. 30 percent. I’d say our relationship with readers is a problem — in more ways than one: A Gallup survey says 52 percent of Americans do not trust news media, up from 30 percent in 1972. Are the two tied? Of course, they are. Who’s responsible for that?
“The critics have it exactly backward,” Farhi says. “Journalists and journalism are the victims, not the cause, of the industry’s shaken state.” Victims? As Farhi says to the critics, “Oh, please.”
Victimhood is an irresponsible abdication of responsibility, a surrender. He might as well declare newspapers dead: Oh, well, we did our best, but everybody around us fucked up and so they’re going to go away now. How dare they do this to us?
My purpose in rebutting Farhi and Greenslade is not to beat up journalists but instead to empower them. The reason to take responsibility for the fall of journalism is to take responsibility for the fate of journalism. Who’s going to try to save it if not for journalists? We are indeed responsible for the future of journalism and we have about one minute to grab that bull by its horns.
(This is why I am holding a conference at CUNY on new business models for news. There is not a minute to waste.)
Tags: cuny, curmudgeons, journalism, newbiznews
October 8th, 2008 at 8:19 am
“Victimhood is an irresponsible abdication of responsibility, a surrender. ”
Oh please, Jeff. I simply don’t have the words for how silly a statement that is. Whether you agree with Farhi et al or not, the idea that being a victim of circumstances and saying so is basically just whining is, as you put it earlier, “bullshit”.
October 8th, 2008 at 8:33 am
You have it pegged, Jeff. Newspapers (or as I prefer now to call them - paper information distribution systems - PIDS) should have seen this coming many years ago but chose to do nothing about it.
I’m reminded of the losing football coach who complained of a snowy field causing his team’s loss. The problem with that excuse is that it snowed on both ends of the field…
October 8th, 2008 at 8:33 am
Well, the three legged stool of print journalism — reader, publisher and advertiser — is not available online. That’s the basic problem. Journalists are about as creative and flexible as people get. They can adapt if there is a new business model available. Right now, their is no alternative business model available. Advertising is inadequate, and its going to get worse.
We’re all searching for the alternative. There are success stories available from people who have used online journalism to sell books or video. Some have used it to sell conferences. The Zuora product supports subscriptions, as does Amazon’s Kindle. My new product allows direct payment between audience and publisher. We’ll see.
October 8th, 2008 at 8:35 am
I do not believe it is black-n-white as suggested.
Journalists are guilty only partially.
That journalism did not immediately jump on the wagon of emerging glimmering and stylish web2.0 blogging and aggregating websites, which presented alternative points of view, opinions and news is not sufficient to hold journalists guilty or backwards. Journalists could not have abruptly abandoned their own established ways and follow suit new trends on Internet because of their recently rising popularity. On the other hand, journalists must be accountable for the fact that after having glimpsed the new developments in the domain of information procurement and sharing and realizing how much potential those held, many of them were slow to adapt or kept clinging to their old ways.
October 8th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Ian,
And bullshit back to you.
The internet gives journalists incredible opportunities to change and improve and grow the field. Sitting back on their fat asses and whining is irresponsible. They did abdicate that responsibility. Whining does no one any good. The last decade of history in the business of newspapers well proves that.
October 8th, 2008 at 8:49 am
But they (editors, writers, publishers) thought the Internet was “like CB radio - a passing trend.” (Editor who actually said that little number is now presiding over a paper chain in bankruptcy proceedings.) They had absolutely NO idea what they were talking about as they had about as much a clue to “the Internets” as did W.
They (editors, writers, publishers) simply never used it. Guess they were too busy to do so. But really… they were never the least bit CURIOUS about it all; merely dismissive in the worst possible way, yet felt compelled to pontificate about it all from on high. Constantly. Forever spinning, in this case, real gold into utter bullshit.
The demise IS their fault, and it is also a crisis of very snotty, ridiculous leadership. I have not the least bit of pity for any of ‘em.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:17 am
Might it also have something to do with the fact that the newspapers and news media in general serve their corporate overlords instead of actually reporting on what’s happening?
I say this based on two things:
1) the corporate media has been less than worthless in reporting on our ongoing economic nightmare. Anyone who is or wants to be well-informed on this issue is going to the economic blogs in what is shaping up to be the seminal event of our lifetimes.
2) Whenever some scandal breaks [Larry Craig comes to mind] the professional journalists come out and say that they’ve known about it for some time.
Well, if you knew about it, why didn’t you report it? That’s your job. This isn’t an issue of reporting scandal for its own sake. It’s an issue of credibility which is ultimately what journalists sell. When Larry Craig talks about “family values” I imagine the press laughing up their sleeves since everyone is in on the joke- except the public, of course.
But it seems like protecting access is far more important to reporters than actually digging for a story.
If I care about what lies get spouted at some press conference or about what people living in half-million dollar houses do as a lifestyle, I can get that information without spending 75 cents for the privilege.
Generate some meaningful content and people will buy your product. Regurgitate statements and offer fluff and your industry will continue to die.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:28 am
> Well, the three legged stool of print journalism — reader, publisher and advertiser — is not available online.
Yes it is (available that is). However, the readers don’t seem to value publishers all that much. Or rather, they don’t value publishers of walled gardens. And the advertisers go where the readers are, regardless of publisher.
BTW - It is interesting that the “stool” doesn’t have editors or authors.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:37 am
Why is “who is guilty” relevant?
What difference does it make whether journalists caused the fall of newspapers or were correct all along but nevertheless were sucked down with the ship?
October 8th, 2008 at 10:02 am
The issue with newspapers is trust in my opinion. Back in the day they reported the news, now it is always being interpreted. Sure advertising volume is down, but if they offered an exceptional product it would still be bought, albeit in a different format.
But when I read the New York Times and have to slog through interpretive journalism being portrayed as objective journalism, it is hard to trust it when it comes to the business or sports section.
Jeff, you have nailed the head that journalism should be going local. But the small outlier papers have fired so much of their staff that all they can do is regurgitate wire copy. They are killing themselves.
I am positive that their are niches in small cities right now for a hyper local daily paper that would be profitable, even if it did not charge a subscription fee.
October 8th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Jeff - As entertaining and provocative as ever. The point I was making way back when, was that many journalists (and their critics) are quick to explain the decline of newspaper circulation and broadcast news ratings in terms of ‘moral failure’ by journalists and journalism.
Let me reverse your proposition. Would you explain the rising number of newspaper sales from the late 19C to the mid-20C by pointing to the quality of the journalism being produced and the journalists churning it out? I think I would start with urbanisation, population growth, literacy, industrial process innovation, distribution etc.
If you honestly think journalism was more important than any of those, then go ahead - make the case. Because it’s exactly the same - as we British would say - ‘arse-about-face’ case you’re making above.
There are strategies for success in declining markets. The Washington Post is repositioning itself as an education company. Journalists and news execs are not passive players in the economy, but neither are we the cause or the drivers of changing patterns of entertainment and information consumption.
And if you want to look at newspapers relationship with readers don’t crank out trust! Trust in media is positively correlated with consumption, so it pretty much tells you what you already know.
There will be winners and losers ahead, but in aggregate, I’ll bet you there will be fewer people reading newspapers in the United States in five years time than there are today.
But judging by current news, there will still be more readers than investment bankers…
October 8th, 2008 at 10:33 am
[...] Jarvis has three shots in his revolver for Paul Farhi, Roy Greenslade (and yours truly) over [...]
October 8th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Jeff, you provocative SOB. As usual, I agree with about 95 percent of your assessment. The other 5 percent isn’t worth quibbling over.
You have, however, provoked me into working on my own analysis, which is too long for a blog comment and is still mostly rattling around in my brain. I’ll send it your way when (if) it spills out onto the floor.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Jeff - the last sentence is key: “We have about one minute…” Why are other’s throwing in the towel. Its bad, but its not too late. Giving up now would make these journalists whiners AND defeatists. One is bad enough, but both?
I hope you succeed in convincing enough of them to really grab the bull by the horns. After all, as a news reading, news loving public, we NEED them.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:20 am
I agree with you that journalists share part of the blame for the failings of journalism, but I also think business staffers share in that blame too. This point is missing from your post.
You can’t blame journalists for broken business models, and you can’t blame business staffers for an out-of-touch editorial product. As out of touch as I think many journalists are with the realities on the ground, I think the same can be said of business staffers. In what ways have they innovated?
How come advertising staffs don’t have a clue on how to sell ads on the Web? How come advertising staffs are still bundling print and Web ads together?
Ultimately, it is publishers and owners who are most to blame for this mess. They are the ones who are supposed to provide both leadership and budgets. If they said 10 years ago, “look we’re transferring 50% of our resources over to the Web,” it would have gotten done.
I would also say that editorial leadership is another failing area. Many top editors understand the Web and the future of journalism less than the lowest editorial staffers. That’s a serious problem.
You don’t get into a mess this big with only part of the puzzle not fitting together. No, it’s all messed up.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:22 am
With apologies for the horrible grammar and typo in my previous post. it’s not me, it’s the iphone. I abdicate all responsibility.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
The premise that “journalism” is one thing and that “journalism” failed “journalism” might be the source of some of this confusion. The reality is that the establishment — mostly the newspaper crowd — just isn’t good at online.
It’s a different discipline, requires different training and business acumen. And sometimes newspapers get it right, but mostly online companies get it right — the Googles, Yahoos, CNets, etc.
If A-rod went and played free safety for the NY Giants, perhaps we would see a performance not unlike when the print paradigm tries to compete online… with some exceptions, it just doesn’t work.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
> I agree with you that journalists share part of the blame for the failings of journalism, but I also think business staffers share in that blame too. This point is missing from your post.
Again - why does it matter?
> You can’t blame journalists for broken business models, and you can’t blame business staffers for an out-of-touch editorial product.
Yet, both will be out of work.
None of this navel-gazing will help you figure out what to do.
October 8th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Overall - I agree with this post Jeff.
One thing that I often come back to, however, is that newspapers aren’t a conscious being. They didn’t “make a decision” to ignore the internet.
But - as institutions they were organized or structured in such a way so that they couldn’t do anything to pivot and transition in response to the internet.
I don’t blame individual reporters or editors. I blame the structure of the institutions in which they worked. It was akin to a military organization: Top-down where people couldn’t make unique decisions and the hierarchy was always followed.
As a result - you are right, it is “our” own fault. But I don’t think the “our” in this case are individual people making bad decisions. It’s a result of an institutional structure, based on 20th century models that simply couldn’t adapt.
October 8th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Why should I pay for something that is consistently slanted toward one side of the political spectrum - be it willful or through collective group-think and a “we’re on safari” view of anyone whose ideas don’t align with east- or west-coast metropolitan memes? You’ve gotten to the point where I assume virtually all news “product” has the same basis and goal. I’d prefer to read DNC press releases from the original source, instead of with all the fluffy bunnies added by so-called journalists.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Many journalists *did* adopt the web early (I was online in 1990, before there was a web). We wrote for pioneering web publications (anyone remember Feed?). We blog. We get lots of attention sometimes. And WE DON’T GET PAID.
Or if we do, not very much. Which is fine if you are dashing off an opinion piece that doesn’t require any time or reporting. Big blogs make money by NOT PAYING for the content which surrounds their ads. True, some are hiring reporters– but mostly they rely on free labor of opinion journalists, which feeds off of newspaper, magazine and book content (AKA stuff that writers actually get paid to do) for things to discuss.
That’s not sustainable in terms of producing the reported news and complex analysis that is needed– and vanishingly few can do in-depth reporting that way. I am one of the few people who manages to do so– with help from a fellowship and book writing. But if newspapers, magazines and books died, there’d be precious little to blog about.
Blaming journalists for this is like blaming laid off computer programmers for outsourcing.
You can blame editors and managers for not seeing the web coming– but you can’t blame the writers who did so but were blasted by a business model which massively increased work while decreasing pay.
Today’s world is highly specialized– it’s ridiculous to blame people for having on specialty, not another.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Adrian,
Forget about newspapers as a product. Think of it in terms o f journalism as a service. There are so many ways to update this service but it was held back by thinking as a product. The analogy to a century ago is: Wow, look at this great new thing coming out - cheap printing. Look at what we can do with that! Let’s have at it! What amazing opportunities!
That’s not what I heard. You?
October 8th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
So, let me get this straight: You earn your living preparing students for paying jobs (with benefits) that aren’t going to be there when they graduate? That is a great racket.
And it’s journalists’ fault that managers missed the boat on Craigslist and eBay, giving away Classifieds franchise? Or that no one of the great minds that once led us could figure out a way to cull some trickle of revenue for newspaper content on the web from cash-flush, new-media aggregators and providers?
That kind of brilliant, incisive thinking reminds me of the Chandler trust fund morons who were convinced that the LA Times circulation drop was the result of liberal journalism. They never worked for a living, much less in journalism, but they were experts.
Mark Pinsky
October 8th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
I have been an addicted newspaper reader all my life.
The writing is boring, less so now, but too late.
The writers are clueless. They cover crooked, backstabbing, who is going to do who and who’s wife is getting on the payroll story as if everything is on the up and up.
I have to go to a bar to find out what’s ‘really going on, who’s in, who’s out’.
The reporting is at best poor, or a lie. For example, the local school has the standard school laying off staff dog and pony story before the school budget comes up. The concerned parent is quoted that her kid is going to shoot junk unless the viola program is fully funded. No mention that the parent is the wife of a teacher. So, I call the paper about their water carrying. It’s as if I am talking about Martians.
Another example. A bartender dies tragically. The bars get together and raise $75k for his daughter. Story uncovered. Why? Because it wasn’t processed, spoon fed and the journalists are all dreaming about moving to some urban hip loft .
Talk radio. Totally filling in the back story. No, zero, zip tie in. Ignored it like the Internet.
Another example. No 24 hour hot line, hot line duty for a staff member. News happens from 10am to 2:30.
By the way, papers are getting better, but I don’t see anyone under 35 reading the local. In ten years, no one under 45.
Craigslist. It’s a killer. I go to the locals classified, it takes five page clicks and works out as well as a gun permit in the Soviet Union.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Mark I Pinsky,
I teach a course in entrepreneurial journalism so they can run their own enterprises.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
As someone who was taught that curiosity and investigation were essential skills and principles for a journalist, it seems bizarre to me that even today, we can be defending journalists and writers who do not look at blogs, social networks, microblogs etc.
And more importantly, given the state of the business, why are journalists not using their skills to build contacts and analyse those with successful online models, and then use their communication skills to transfer that insight to the marketing and advertising teams?
It’s not rocket science.
I agree with @Maia that it is extremely hard to equal a reasonable wage with a career purely in blogging. But not only do a growing number of people manage it, but that wage level is far, far higher than most people get when they start in journalism.
And a blog, microblog, website or other outlet doesn’t have to be a replacement for a career - it can be a tool to demonstrate how a different approach can work. I can think of very few business people who are upset when an employer figures out a way to make money, and presents it as a complete solution.
October 8th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
How utterly frustrating and predictable it is to see the same old boilerplate dropped into the latest “we suck” drivel about the newspaper industry.
Here’s some cold-hard reality: Newspapers jumped online at the earliest opportunity with varying degrees of ferocity. They were swept along in the Shit River that is the culture of free and are now drowning in that refuse.
We devalued our product and allowed it to become the fodder that drives the Internet, with minimal payback.
Imagine for a moment if we had treated our “content” as though it had equal value to what we put into its gathering. We do not throw it out to the world for free, or for the small percentage of our revenue generated mostly by value added sales. What kind of a business model is that?
Imagine if all newspapers saw the folly of a free online news model and worked on an all-advertising online model. Sorta like Craigslist, I guess.
We gave away the store and we’re paying the price yet the conventional wisdom seems to be that we did not give it away quickly enough.
Remember the late ’90s when we were all swept up in this Internet thing? Fools rushed in with piles of cash, throwing it at the holy grail called content. They mostly withered and went away but we stood fast, giving away our content for a slow death.
Yes, we didn’t move fast enough online. Stick with that 1990s thinking, it’s working great.
October 8th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
I’m calling bullshit on your calling bullshit, Jeff. Back in the early 1990s, at about the same time you were starting up a print product, Entertainment Weekly, a dozen or so of us over at Time Magazine became the first magazine — and one of maybe 4 or 5 print products anywhere — to put its entire contents online. At the time, AOL, our host for this endeavor, had 250,000 subscribers and was a scrappy upstart, trailing the mighty CompuServe and Prodigy (remember them?).
There’s a lot of revisionist history that says print fiddled while Rome burned. It’s not true. It’s a useful fiction though, because the reality is even more depressing than the “print missed the boat narrative.” What no one wants to acknowledge is that there is something about mainstream print brands that in an overwhelming majority of cases, has simply failed to translate into digital media. You can point to a lot of reasons for that, but you can’t say “it is our fault that we did not see the change coming soon enough and ready our craft for the transition. It is our fault that we did not see and exploit all the opportunities new media and new relationships with the public presented.” Many print journalists did. We were talking about that more than 15 years ago. Your point about whining is well taken; as for who’s a victim, well, not to put too fine a point on it, but who cares? The market is a harsh mistress.
At the end of the day, journalism will undoubtedly be just fine. Perhaps we’ll have a smaller number of people willing to pay a premium price for a premium product. Perhaps the undifferentiated mass will get an undifferentiated (advertising supported) product. But as long as there is a need for reliable information willing to pay a price, directly or indirectly, there will be a market for journalism. There’s no point in being sentimental for existing print products (not that you are). We survived the demise of Life, Look, the Saturday Evening Post and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly just fine thanks.
October 8th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Robert,
One word: Pathfinder.
October 8th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
More news, less paper.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
I find it remarkable that you have found so many witty ways to criticize the people who actually produce journalism, and so few ways to contribute to solving the basic problem of how they can continue to produce journalism in the absence of a working business model online.
Riddle me this: If the answers to this conundrum as so obvious that those missing the boat are deserving of your withering criticism, why is it that there are so few individuals or organizations successfully producing news, online, for a profit? You, sir, are a media consultant — are the companies for which you consult producing original content and making a profit online?
For that matter, you are an expert in entrepreneurial journalism. You claim to be passionate about this subject. Have you considered launching a new community news site that can investigate corruption, cover politics, watchdog police, monitor the war, and perform the other roles of the journalists you deride as “hacks” — and make money doing it?
Or perhaps the old saying is true: those who can’t do, teach.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Oh, come on, “working reporter,” that’s all I write about. Start hitting the ‘older entries’ link and don’t stop until you’re sick of me.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Let’s make this abstract discussion about something more tangible. Jeff, you’re largely responsible for the internet strategy being pursued by the Newhouse newspapers. Their flagship paper, the Star-Ledger, is apparently losing $30 million to $40 million a year, according to Editor & Publisher. The rest aren’t in much better shape. Don’t you think it’s about time you gave your readers an honest assessment of why your vision for Advance Internet failed? Or do you think it’s a success, despite the newspapers’ struggles, and why?
I fully expect you to ignore this question because it’s being asked anonymously. Nonetheless…
October 8th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Tell you what, Jeff, how about you help me out. I’m one of those dunderheaded hacks who doesn’t know much about them Internets. Yet somehow I can’t recall you ever writing a post about a demonstrated business model that makes money — basically everything you ever say boils down to “link and pray.”
Take the examples you link to above:
“Networked Journalism.” Finding ways for the public to point out spelling errors. Great idea. Makes money how?
Glam. in your words, mainly a “Curator.” And as I recall, its revenue numbers are more than a little controversial — and largely does not come from its content creation.
New Rule. Link to other people’s reporting. Great, more downsizing. More single perspective news. And makes money how?
The link economy. The old standby. And which content producing companies is that working out for? Oh, right, Talking Points Memo and its staff of — what, eight?
Look, I’ll put aside the snark and give you more respect than you ever give people in my line of work. I don’t know how newspapers can make money online. There, I said it. And I do know that despite the blogs, links, interactive content, and multimedia that newspapers have added — the very steps you have suggested — online ad revenue isn’t growing. It’s slowing. And it’s still less than 10 percent of what we need to survive.
So, hey, educate me, teacher. Point me to your business model. And I’ll cheerfully go away.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Beyond a punchline, what does your invoking Pathfinder do, other than validate my point? Print didn’t miss the digital boat. They’re on the boat, and still bailing.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Working,
It’s late. This is one of the better tags. I’m serious: just keep clicking. It’s not all about new models but there’s a lot there with a lot of links:
http://www.buzzmachine.com/tag/newbiznews/page/3/
I’m holding a conference in new business models for news just for this purpose. Money, meet mouth.
If you had the guts to say who you are, maybe you could come. But blank nametags aren’t allowed. Rude, you know.
Once the conference is on, I’ll link to the wisdom of a much wiser and larger crowd.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Jeff, honest question: Why are you so unpleasant? Does it serve some purpose I’m not getting?
I don’t use my name because I’m a working journalist and I want to be able to speak my mind without my employer getting involved in the conversation. Excuse the hell out of me. You’re perfectly capable of banning anonymous comments if you don’t like them.
Thanks for the link.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
And working, you shouldn’t go away. Better to be part of the discussion. But I really do wish you’d say who you are. We bloggers put our names on what we say. It takes away your ability to complain about anonymous, snarking bloggers.
The bottom line is that the bottom line is going to be smaller. Newspapers aren’t monopolies anymore. They don’t need to be all things to all people. The link affords efficiency. The web demands specialization. It also demands efficiency. And it enables networks. Glam or not, I believe much of news will come from collaborative networks that support affiliates in terms of content, promotion, education, technology, and advertising.
To save you the clicks, here are a few links:
http://www.buzzmachine.com/2006/01/18/new-news-deconstructing-the-newspaper/
http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/02/12/new-business-models-for-news/
http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/07/08/newsroom-economics/
http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/12/21/cutting-up-a-newspaper/
http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/07/10/google-as-the-new-pressroom/
http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/07/28/the-imperatives-of-the-link-economy/
http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/06/02/the-ethic-of-the-link-layer-on-news/
http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/11/12/glam-the-success-of-the-network/
http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/04/05/desperate-times-need-desperate-models/
http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/08/06/a-newspapers-life-and-death-struggle-played-out-in-a-new-medium/
http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/02/15/reverse-syndication/
http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/09/10/the-start-of-reverse-syndication-and-end-of-the-ap/
http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/02/22/new-rule-cover-what-you-do-best-link-to-the-rest/
There’s a start. I’m not being smart-assed. I really do write about this all the time. Those are just a few of my selected posts on the topic.
October 8th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
And I’m serious, I don’t appreciate anonymity and I say it to anyone who leaves comments here. Yes, they can be left. But I have more respect for those who have the guts to stand by what they say. You’re a reporter asking questions. Since when should that be cause to hide? Maybe it’s not you I’m unhappy with on that but your employer but in any case it’s ridiculous, even offensive, when reporters hide and are not transparent - reporters of all people. Not trying to be rude about it, though I do think that having to talk to someone behind a mask is itself rather rude.
October 8th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
One more link, “working” …
Start here and go backwards to see what a lot of people are doing to work on networked journalism. These are reports from the conference we held at CUNY a year ago:
http://newsinnovation.com/page/2/
October 8th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
[...] Jeff Jarvis attacks the premises in Paul’s analysis and writes, “It is our fault.” [...]
October 9th, 2008 at 5:04 am
Jeff Jarvis Says:
October 8th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Forget about newspapers as a product. Think of it in terms o f journalism as a service.
Jeff,
Very well put. As we see by the comments, most haven’t figured it out.
Newspapers - and electronic broadcast news - are not and never were “products.” They are distribution systems that merely deliver words to listeners or readers. The value was the expensive monopoly systems - printing presses, delivery trucks, broadcast transmitters, microwave networks, etc. Few could assemble the necessary capital to compete.
Citizen journalists have now taken over as deliverer of words to readers and listeners. They will now tell, who, what, when, where and why. Whether or not it becomes a paying proposition remains to be seen.
October 9th, 2008 at 7:09 am
Jeff — two issues with your post and a question.
Without a doubt many newspapers have become aloof, formal and too often look at the world through the eyes of the institutions they cover, not the eyes of readers. But….
First, while I am certain that you know the distinction, your post confuses the revenue model with readership.
While readers bring advertisers, when a much lower cost advertising alternative comes along many advertisers will use it, even if readership grows. Why? To improve efficiency from a much lower cost per thousand impressions. Before the Internet the classified ad business flourished for lack of effective and cost-efficient alternatives. This says nothing, absolutely nothing, about the news and opinion in the paper.
That monopoly newspapers contributed to this problem, by rent-seeking prices for advertising space, is also a function of the business model (and atrophied government rules on competition). That is, again, not about the work journalists do.
High and steadily increasing subscription prices, are also a factor over which journalists have no control. When the LATimes cut the news box price to 25-cents sales flourished. But that also brought in many readers whose incomes made them unattractive to advertisers. Again, this is the business model, not what happens in the newsroom.
Second, readership is up at many newspapers — because of their websites. There is zero indication that demand for news has collapsed, although demand for news with an attitude clearly is on the rise.
Also, since you are an academic with practical experience, it would be interesting to know what you think about the changes in how reading is taught and how this has affected readership. Friends of mine complain that even among college graduates many of their employees do not read and write at the level they need for their non-news businesses. In conversations with others I am struck by how many people I meet who are under 25 or 30 seem to read for specific content, but not context — and the newspaper is very much about context as facts play out over time.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:15 am
Jeff wrote:
“The fall of journalism is, indeed, journalists’ fault.”
And I agree — if journalism has failed, then all members of the profession must share in the blame — individual accomplishments fade when the entire profession fails.
This, of course, is also true about the technology sector and its contribution to the development of the personal computer and the Internet — while some geeks have made fantastic contributions, the technology sector has failed, miserably, in serving the needs of the broader society.
And journalism’s first and most important failure was its inability to understand this new technology and its effect on society in general and journalism in particular. They bought the big lie, lock, stock and barrel, and cooperated with its dissemination to the general public.
As a programmer, I would suggest that you learn about the personal computer and the Internet BEFORE you start developing new business models for the news.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:33 am
I just read about an incident that may explain some of journalism’s problems.
A reporter asked a subject for an interview. The subject agreed if he got a copy of the entire unedited interview. The reporter withdrew the request.
I don’t know how journalists feel about that exchange, but ordinary people think that the subject was right and are suspicious of reporters that insist on being the sole source.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:38 am
I followed as many of Jeff’s links as I could stomach and actually found them rather instructive.
Mostly, they are a white flag for the newspaper industry disguised as innovative thinking, something valued so highly these days newspaper companies are willing to take their eyes off the bottom line. No small accomplishment.
For a reality check, however, Jeff and his ilk should do an honest study of profit margins at these dinosaurs, using real dollars.
The print model, as weak as we’ve allowed it to become, still drives the bus. Abandoning that for pie-in-the-sky visions that have proven time and again to be failures makes no sense on any level.
If you look to the future and see your own demise you have no business advising or leading anyone. Yes, most of our failures have been self-inflicted but it’s not because we didn’t listen to people like Jeff. It’s because we did.
We devalued our product with predictable results. We’ve changed the landscape of journalism, endangering our profession and wonder what happened.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:14 am
[...] from Jeff Jarvis on down, seems to be pointing fingers this way and that, looking for who to blame for the current [...]
October 9th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Stan,
Just holding onto print will not work. Preservation is not a strategy for the future. Yes, I believe we should use print to drive to that future. But first you damned well better decide where you’re driving. Standing still, however, is not an option.
October 9th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
On the topic of culpability, Stan Hogan wrote the only thing that really matters here:
Here’s some cold-hard reality: Newspapers jumped online at the earliest opportunity with varying degrees of ferocity. They were swept along in the Shit River that is the culture of free and are now drowning in that refuse.
We devalued our product and allowed it to become the fodder that drives the Internet, with minimal payback.
None of this is any more complicated than that. Any other analysis is just overthinking.
October 9th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
“We devalued our product” is a myth.
“We were no longer a monopoly and could no longer control news as our product” would be more accurate.
October 9th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
“We were no longer a monopoly and could no longer control news as our product”
To whatever extent newspapers “controlled news” in the first place, what was stopping them from continuing to do so? Imagine every media outlet having resisted the web — especially resisted dumping their content there at a price of $0. It’s not a given that things would have still wound up where they are today.
Tech evangelists and Internet gurus love the frame of “control.” It’s the lens through which so much of their analysis takes shape. But it’s overrated. Not everything is about vague macro concepts such as “control.” But insofar as control is relevant here, newspapers could EASILY have maintained it. They still retain control of news production, by and large; there’s no reason they couldn’t have retained control of distribution. They threw that away by letting their stuff loose on the web, where their prime calling cards — scarcity and authority — could only be eroded.
October 9th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Sorry for the mixed metaphors up there — “cards” being “eroded” and so forth.
October 9th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
[...] Jeff Jarvis also tackles this subject in his own overstated, pundit-like manner. [...]
October 9th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
The fall of journalism comes from the simple fact that you have nothing to offer any more. Journalists are people who can write, but don’t actually do anything. Nowadays, I can read blogs from scientists, hedge fund managers, zookeepers, Navy captains and so forth. They don’t just write, they’re actually experts at what they write about and they do it every day.
You are not experts and you don’t do it every day. Your advantage in prose is outweighted by their advantage in knowledge. That’s pretty brutal and blunt, but there you have it.
October 9th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
As Farhi puts it, before he dimisses them: “We were too slow to adapt, too complacent, too yoked to our tried-and-true editorial traditions and formulas. We could have saved ourselves, goes the refrain, if only we had been more creative and aggressive and less risk averse.”
All true, but he may have missed the most important one of all: “We were so thoroughly in the tank for one side of the political spectrum or the other that we couldn’t even pretend to be objective anymore.”
The main reason for for traditional journalism’s downfall is that the public simply doesn’t trust journalists anymore. And with good reason — they’re no longer trustworthy.
October 9th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Journalists pretty much missed the boat internet-wise, but it’s not just that they discounted, arrogantly dismissed and fundamentally misunderstood the transformative power of the new medium. And while I’m on that, how come so many of us non-journalists and “non-elites” immediately sensed the information revolution happening while these supposedly brilliant people all missed it? No one can answer that one. (My personal opinion is the least talented folks go into journalism and politics.)
But it also goes to the fact that it is impossible to get just the facts from journalists now. They come out of j-school wanting to “change the world” and “make a difference.” Make me gag. They are all opinion-deliverers, all one-sided, and we can get all the opinion we want free online and from people who do it much better, smarter, faster. Journalists have just plain passed their sell-by date by about a decade. They no longer deliver news; they are in the way of it. I, for one, won’t pay for it and am not sorry to see their demise. They squandered something that used to be critical and universal. Now they are just a sad joke, and partisan hacks at best. Die, gatekeepers, die.
October 9th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
I’m curious, how many of those commenting here believe that journalists, and journalism more generally, are victims? If they are victims, then victims of what? Forces of nature or history? Greed and corruption, mismanagement? If the later; this seems like a hell of a story given how widespread it must be. But really, if journalists are as flexible, nimble, adaptable, etc., some have asserted, then how is the current state of the profession to be explained?
October 9th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
With the advent of the web and bloggers, readers found out how they’d been misled all those years.
Many of them ceased paying for untrustworthy product.
Seems reasonable.
October 9th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Jeez, Jeff, how can you ignore the elephant in the room? Whether you like it or not, and you probably don’t, a full half of all Americans hold what can broadly be called center-right views. And after this election season, it is simply no longer intellectually respectable to pretend that most journalists are anything but in the tank for the left wing of the Democratic party. And I say this as a former left-wing Democrat.
News organizations that can afford to spend weeks rooting through Wasilla dumpsters and going on about tanning beds, but no time at all on Obama’s links with the voter fraud factory called ACORN, for instance, or his colorful foreign contributors, have no right to any respect–or any of our dollars.
As Jim Treacher remarked, “on the bright side, your average mainstream reporter’s political views will be a perfect fit in his or her new job as a Starbucks barista.” Enjoy your irrelevance, comrades.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
I was a Mass Communications student at a state university in Minnesota in the late 80s. The seeds for the current journalism mess were in place then, but hadn’t yet sprouted fully.
Back then, most media claimed political neutrality…but look at some of the news reporting on Reagan. They HATED him, and they let it show. Not as bad as today with W, but it was fairly apparent.
I still remember the day one of my professors (I believe it was even in an ethics course) took up the subject of neutrality. He had this whole wink-and-nudge attitude toward the thing. It was like “remember that you’re neutral, but by the way if you cover politics then you should cut a break on people like Dukakis”. Being of the same political persuasion at that time, I felt like I was in on a delicious secret. Now it turns my stomach.
Journalism today is in the state it is, at least in part, because of that professor and others like him. Their students learned that same lesson pretty well, by the look of things.
The problem isn’t that newspapers and others have become less neutral. It’s that they continue to hang on to their facade of neutrality. I respect an outlet that doesn’t make any bones about it. Mother Jones or The Nation are fine for what they are because they don’t pretend to be giving the right wing a fair shake. You can go there and know the editorial slant up front, so you can apply your own personal BS filter. Newsmax or Front Page ditto the other way.
Me? I ditched journalism as a profession in favor of software development before I finished college. I never regretted it once…especially since I can now blog when the mood strikes and be read by people the world over.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
The product was always bad — but it just keeps getting worse. And there continue to be more alternatives.
Somewhere along the line, newspapers stopped hiring journalists and reporters and they began hiring press agents for the Democrat party — and propagandists for the left.
I can’t look at a big city newspaper without finding lies, distortions, significant unreported news stories, and Democrat party press releases dressed up as “news”. Ditto with the networks. Patterico on the LA Times gives you more evidence than I need to substantiate my point. Or read InstaPundit on a regular basis. Or Just One Minute. The press corp is a disgrace to democracy.
What a disgrace.
And what intellectual midgets populate the ranks of the major news organizations — badly educated, intellectually incurious, closed minded, bigoted mediocrities. And for all that, they are condescending to their audience. What idiots.
Do I find the product and those responsible for it appalling? Yes.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Journalism’s Fall is the Fault of … Journalists…
Jeff Jarvis:
The fall of journalism is, indeed, journalists’ fault.
It is our fault that we did not see the change coming soon enough and ready our craft for the transition. It is our fault that we did not see and exploit — hell, we resisted …
October 9th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
I wrote the above after reading the latest dump load from Dana Milbank — an outstanding representative of the tribe.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
> [Newspapers] still retain control of news production, by and large;
Not really, especially if we subtract the press-releases that they reprint.
> there’s no reason they couldn’t have retained control of distribution.
Yes, they could have maintained control over the distribution of news that they produced. However, the result wouldn’t be less news on the intertubes, but news from not-newspapers. For example, do you really think that the press release folks are going to avoid the web to maintain a newspaper control over “their” news? (Yes, newspapers can try to make the press release folk choose between newspapers and the web - how do you think that that will play out?)
October 9th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
…wow, so many comments and no one (except one) can actually see the forest. I’m over 50 and here’s why I no longer buy a newspaper, watch TV news or subscribe to news magazines.
Bias.
And while yes, it’s ENTIRELY the fault of journalists, it’s not because they failed to see the new business model or they abdicated responsibility, etc., etc., etc. It’s because the internet has, for the first time, pulled back the veil of authority you all have been peddling, and we can see that what you’ve been peddling isn’t news, but a very skewed view of the world as you think it should be.
I don’t need to pay for the priviledge of being lectured to. Never have, never will. For example, I’ve known since 60 Minutes first came out decades ago that that it was ambush journalism at its finest. Whether they were morally right or wrong in what they were digging after, they used dishonest means to uncover and lay out a story. And as a consequence, I rarely ever watched that program. But I did persist in reading/ watching/ subscribing to other outlets. Not any more. The internet has changed all that. J-school grads can no longer can pass off opinion as fact or disguise personal belief as an annoymous source. Those days are over and gone.
Hoever, good news! The day you go back to reporting the news is the day I’ll start donating my hard earned dollars to you again. I doubt it’ll come in my lifetime. But at least don’t expect me to pay a dime for your opinions. I can get my fill of opinions on the internet.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
It’s not just bias. Newspapers became less interesting to read–so many papers don’t have very good writers, much less real reporting. There’s just no skill.
Charles Perry , in the LA Times Food section, was one of the few writers on the paper who had pieces that were fun to read. Clever, interesting, –all the good stuff.
Even the glossiest columnists don’t seem to care about their writing. They care more about getting on TV and expressing opinions.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Mr. Jarvis,
Along the same lines as noted by “K T Cat” and “dan”; how many journalists with a degree in “Journalism” have any understanding of statistics, accounting, science, engineering, law or medicine? How can they possibly have any credibility to the rest of us?
I do think you are on the right track by developing an entrepreneurial approach.
Good Luck
October 9th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Couple of points –
* Whole industries have realigned, cutting out the middleman with the introduction of the Internet. Its called supply chain collapse. How the News organizations thought they could be immune from such changes is bewildering. Especially considering that information — News systems stock and trade — is the easiest to automate and disseminate.
* Traditional print can’t compete as the news is old before it is even in the truck. ‘Hold for rewrite!’ can’t compete against ‘repost’ on a blog for immediacy. Nor can its price structures compete against a couple of dudes with a server and a T1 link.
* But the Jschool grads have other issues –
- If you want to be a news person ‘to change the world’ go work for a nonprofit. Agendas are not the purpose of reporting.
- When I see a news person browbeat an 81 year old man who was just protecting his own property. There…
- When I see a news person openly cheering at a convention. There…
- When I hear that reporters are complaining about the smell on a campaign plane. There…
- When members like Jayson Blair can make fake stories out of whole cloth. There…
- When Dan Rather can support the idea of ‘fake but accurate’. There…
- When news organizations will doctor evidence to their own purposes. There…
- When the Gibsons and Courics attempt to play gotcha journalism rather than delivery of information. There…
… is something wrong. Not with cost structures, readership, or other business excuses. The fundamental product has turned like a fish having been out in the sun for too long. The quality of product on many blogs is better informed than those of the ‘paid’ press. That was evident in the Rathergate affair.
They NY Sun closed up shop a week ago. Before the end of 2009 at least 3 more major dailies will disappear. The News organizations have no one to blame but themselves.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
I find myself wondering; how much of the problem with journalism, and journalists, stems from the same source of the problems with the public education system?
That source being: the proselytizing and grooming for orthodoxy of thought that now passes for a ‘liberal’ education?
Seems to me that the fall of the calling of journalist seems to track, with similar phase delay, the rise of the “professional, degreed journalist” over the mor prozaic and diversely-based “reporter,” just as the failing of the public schools tracks, with a half-career or so’s phase delay, the rise of the “professional, degreed educator” over the more prozaic and diversely-based “teachers.”
October 9th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Look, you guys are so predictably and unashamedly in the tank that half the country simply doesn’t trust anything you have to say. You might start with that.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
“It’s not just bias. Newspapers became less interesting to read–so many papers don’t have very good writers, much less real reporting. There’s just no skill.”
Yes in part, a big part now that’s true but this has still been a remarkable discussion. Why do you think talk radio took off in the early 90s? And of course what is that bias… that manipulative prejudice to be more precise? PC liberal/leftism. Activist journalism with agenda. Largely void of old-fashioned values, like honesty and humility. Under scant guise of objectivity, any means possible to distort facts, evidence and down right reality. Jeff Jarvis’s big acknowledgment misses one of the biggest factors, although, he may find Keith Olbermann in agreement.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Jeff: Good post, but your numbers are a little off. Given the numbers you cite, the circulation/population now would be 57% of the circulation/population in 1970, i.e down 43%.
Still very substantial.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
jblog, Peg C. and Bruce nail it! I would love to get up in the morning and read a good newspaper with my first cup of coffee, but the rag here in Tulsa is dreck - I haven’t subscribed in years. It’s dreck because it’s hopelessly biased - leftward. Just the other day I read on the ‘net an AP story on the Obama - Ayers connection that basically just regurgitated Obama campaign talking points.
I read someone the other day comment that Watergate was the worst thing that could have happened to the news business - now every “journalist” wants to be the next Bob Woodward. You guys would be doing a lot better if they wanted to be the next Michael Yon or Michael Totten.
It’s a myth that we’re all partisans who only want to read stuff we agree with. I’ll bet jblog, Peg C. and Bruce, along with tens of millions of others, would welcome, and pay for, accurate and objective reporting. This financial crisis is a direct result of the failure of the press / media to do their job. But as said above, there are now other sources for news. You hacks won’t be missed.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
52% don’t trust the media? I don’t believe it. I think it is much higher than that. They must have included journalists in the poll. Take them out, and it is probably 99%. Even liberals know they media are lying.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Here’s a small example of how journalism is failing its community of readers. In my Southwestern city my wife and I live near to what once was one of the consistently busy full-service corp. chain restaurants in the city. It had been in place for 10 years, and the parking lot overflowed every night onto the neighboring streets and lots.
It suddenly closed down with no notice or a press release. People who knew I lived nearby were asking me about it. I e-mailed the food editor at one of the dailies and asked if they knew anything and got no response. I e-mailed the food editor at a weekly a couple weeks later and got the brushoff - she wouldn’t even make a phone call to corporate - told me to forward an e-mail to the business reporter!
I then had a unprofitable e-mail dialogue with the reporter and finally blind-copied the editor out of frustration with her rudeness, thinking that he’d be interested, and the reporter was just being lazy. The editor chewed me out, telling me that he could care less about chain eateries. I replied that it’s not profitable for a paper to consider someone who tries to inform and suggest stories to be a nuisance.
I forwarded e-mails to my friends, and they couldn’t believe journalists and editors could be so rude and uncaring.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
After having read the above posts, I have come to the concusion that many of the writers are clueless. If the news media put out a quality product it would sell much better than what we have available in general today. Does no one understand the law of supply and demand? If I constantly get “crap” from this source what do you think I am going to do in the future? If you guess buy more crap, please stop reading now.
When I was much younger the news media put out news that was just facts with little commentary. Today we are quite short of complete facts and get lots of bias that is called commentary. Way too often this bias is obviously biased left. I don’t know if this is journalism schools teaching this or just bad editors but the print and video media today puts out a poor quality product. Why would anyone with brains pay for a poor quality product when they can go online for free and find with just a little searching complete unbiased facts?
As an example why did no major news outlet look into Barack Obamas background with a fine tooth comb like they do for republican candidates?
If it’s not bias what is it?
Why is there no published info on his years in college and his years before he became a presidential candidate. The public is not complete idiots. Sure some are more easily fooled and led than others but at least some see that no info is being produced. Before you call me biased I am registered for voting as a libertarian. I don’t like McCain, but at least I know about him. The news media in general has done worse than a bad job of researching Obama’s background which can only lead to justified charges of bias. Why would I buy that product? That was as an example.
This problem is way more than just about politics. The poor quality of what is now called journalism covers a large range of topics being presented with a bias instead of presenting complete facts. I am smart enough to make up my own mind I don’t need or appreciate being told/led toward/ what to think. News should be objective yet todays news is more subjective by quite a margin.
Is it any wonder that bloggers have grabbed market share? Many successful bloggers put out a quality product that is enjoyable to read and they present all the facts letting me the reader make up my own mind.
Intellectual honesty is very important. Too many journalists (obviously not all) seem to have missed that fact in their writings. The ride down that slippery slope may already be too far gone for print news industry to recovery.
I have no intention of coming back here to read any replies. The blog owner has my email he can reply if he wants to.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
I see so much of this echoed in the film industry. It used to be that movie scripts were written by ‘real’ published writers. Script-writers existed mainly to massage the story into a camera and microphone friendly format.
Now ‘blockbuster’ movies are written by kids who went to college to write movies.
News used to ‘happen’ and it was just the reporter’s job to check the facts and collate that ‘happening’ into a coherent text, information-rich at the top with the fluff on the bottom, ready to be trimmed to fit the page in the paste-up room
Now all the fluff and self-aggrandizing opinion is at the top, and the content is nowhere to be found.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
[...] via Instapundit, Jeff Jarvis says the press is responsible for its own downfall. He’s quite right. He also [...]
October 9th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Hear, hear! Although it might not be the journalists so much as the publishers who wanted to rest on their laurels.
After recycling three newspapers for years I now get my news from Web sites. Newspapers still call me offering subscriptions. I say, “If I wanted a subscription, don’t you think I’d have one by now?”
October 9th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
I was center-left until 9-11, now I’m center-right. I stopped reading the L.A. Times because of their simplistic biases but by then I was also getting all the news I could read from the internet for free, be it from blogs or directly. Would I subscribe to a great paper that reports news without editorializing? Maybe, but I’m also addicted to free internet news. I can even read the Sunday ads for Best Buy and such online. A paper would have to have a hell of a lot to offer me.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
JohnMc touched on something that really came to the forefront during RatherGate. There are experts in every field you can name blogging with their expertise. Something like 20 minutes after the airing of the TANG documents they were being analyzed and torn apart by experts who quickly exposed them as fakes. There are no experts in journalism; it is much more a jack-of-all-trades business and the expertise they purported to sell has been exposed for the fakery I’m guessing it always was. They certainly are out of their league in trying to explain the economic mess to us. I understand it better after reading Blackhedd on RedState than I can from any MSM outlet you name (and I am economics-averse).
Virtually all of the bloggers I follow are experts in their fields. Most write better than college professors. Has anyone read a newpaper or current events magazine lately and not struggled through inpenetrable syntax, typos and other glaring editorial errors? It’s agony - and that’s without examining the execrable content of most articles. I’ll go and find what I want; no one is going to feed it to me anymore. And I, too, am over 50. Our kids don’t know what a newpaper is. When even those of us over 50 have given up on newspapers, TV news, etc., what does that say for the viability of the business?
October 9th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Newspapers are losing subscribers and thus, advertisers because they can’t be trusted to report the truth. They have become newsmakers and footsoldiers for the DNC. I go to the blogs and FoxNews for my news. Simple as that.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
It seems to be that we often conflate three or more “journalisms” when we dive into the “who’s at fault” issue.
There’s “journalism” meaning media organizations, along with their good and bad journalists, good and bad business staff and (good and bad) readerships; there’s “journalism” meaning the universe of journalists, some entrepreneurial, some curmudgeonly, some smart, some lazy, and so on; then there’s “journalism” meaning the practice of the craft and including all the civic-minded public service ideals that many of us want to see survive in whatever sustainable business model comes along.
The first group didn’t do a great job trying to adapt to the new business realities. But while there’s certainly no shortage of examples of grossly bad business and journalism decisions, it’s also true that few industries – whether well-run or not – have adapted well to disruptive technologies, which the internet surely is. Clay Christensen’s work (The Innovator’s Dilemma and other books) shows how an existing customer base often traps even far-sighted companies into patterns of behavior that leave them vulnerable to smaller, more nimble upstarts.
Which is exactly what we’re seeing in the news business, where some members of the second kind of “journalism” are coming up with new and entrepreneurial ways of reporting, presenting and distributing news, and as a result picking away at the established business model.
That’s not to absolve media organizations from bad decisions made along the way, or to lionize the emerging new pack of media organizations or entrepreneurs; it’s simply to suggest that organizational structure, existing customer bases and so on have something to do with it as well – and that this cycle isn’t particularly unique to the news business.
Does it matter whose fault it is? It doesn’t if all we want to do is point fingers; but it does if it helps us figure out what the underlying causes are, so we can build better and more sustainable news/business models for the future.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
No offense to journalists, but the reason that newspapers are tanking is because of the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect. I see this all the time in medical “news” reporting.
The reporters generally get things dead-ass wrong; even when they can manage to get some things right, they still can’t understand or communicate the details. I don’t believe anything written on topics I know.
So why should I believe anything written about topics I don’t know? Frankly, if I want economics, I can read 20 blogs written by economists, not some piece of crap written by an innumerate “journalist.” Ditto for legal issues, demographics, and so on.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Readers are starved for quality. Great writers had, have, and will have no problem selling their products. Investigative journalists will always be able to sell their product.
Lazy arrogant plagiarists are no longer in demand. Nobody wants to reguritating an earlier article. Why would I pay you, when I can subscribe directly to AP wire for free?
Readers aren’t interested in sermons from the MSM cult. Yes, we see the elite MSM mindset as just another cult, with all the wierd secrets and myths, and it is just as boring as Mithraism.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Several years ago, I read an article stating the importance of really knowing what business you’re in. The author described the “Railroad Men” and how they missed the changes that impacted their industry. The fact was that they were in the transportation businesses and railroads are only a part of that. I hear the same thing from “newspaper men.” You’re not really in the newspaper business, you’re in the information business. Until you realize that, you’re only going to see your profession continue to decline.
The issue of trust can’t be brushed aside. Reporters have squandered the public’s trust with their bias and naked favoritism. “Fake but Accurate” is hardly a way to win and maintain the public’s trust. Upwards of 50% of Americans are Republicans but you’d never know that to read most newspapers, magazines, or watch news programs. You’ve proven unworthy of our trust so we turn away from you. Your circulation and viewership continues to decline but you go ever deeper in the tank for Democrats. Millions of people like me can honestly say that we don’t need you any more.
As a job aid for those journalists who’ll soon be losing their jobs, I recommend “Would you like a muffin with your latte?” You won’t be working at my company.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Most of the article and the responses are indeed “Bullshit.” I saw no references to the fact that 95% of all US Newspapers and magazines are leftist-oriented, and do ttheir best to stiff the 50% of their potential audiences by delivering socialist drivel. Where is the oft-praised “investigative reporting?” If there is any it tries to defame conservatives and Republicans; but Democrats seem to be on the side of the angels- therefore free of sin
and below their investigative ’scopes. I ans many of my friends were once proud subscribers to Time, The NY Times, Newsweek, The Bergen Record, NY News, Long Island Newsday, Philadelphia Enquirer, et al. But over the years they have fallen farther and farther to the left. A has been said many times-”They left me, I didn’t leave them.” So now they got their wish- a small but loyal following of air-heads who don’t think and have beengradu
October 9th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Egads, the journalists responding to this just can’t see it. News is a service and when we “the paying subscriber” can;t stomach the service we are getting we go else where.
When I wanted to find out what was going on in the middle east — I turned to Totten & Yon. There was no bias, just raw perspective. When opinion was injected it was noted with “I think…” or “It is my opinion…”
When I want hurricane information… I go to the Hurricane blogs that report data to let me make the proper decisisons. I could give a flip about some reporter standing in the surf saying “Gee the wind is picking up now.”
When I want sports news, I go to the blogs to discuss the good the bad and the ugly with people who have an actual interest in the teams I follow.
When I want science news, I hit up the science blogs to give me the news and views… not skewed hopes and dreams of an uneducated twit that doesn’t know the difference between bench science and application.
When I want politic news, I wants facts not opinion (nor opinion disguised as facts.) So you won’t be seeing my dollar. I won’t support your habit. I am not an enabler.
Until journalists start acting as reporters (note the noun here… one who reports [the news]) the consumer will seek elsewhere to get the news. News is hard to come by… it’s the commodity you can peddle…. but for some odd reason you refuse to sell it. Opinions are cheap and everywhere…. so why try to compete in that market. As long as you continue to peddle opinion, don’t be surprised to find the competition incredibly stiff. Or maybe after all that schooling in journalism, you guys really never learned the difference between the two.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
It has been interesting reading the posts by insiders or people who pretend to be insiders versus those of their customers and the radical difference in focus between the two. The left wing bias is so obvious and so well covered its a tiresome subject. All I will say is that its not up to the customer base to prove that the media is biased, its up to the media to prove to their customers that they aren’t biased.
As important is the complete lack of expertise. I was quite young when I noticed that almost any news story about a subject I was familiar with usually got very basic information completely wrong and showed a shocking lack of real knowledge. With the explosion of the internet, it became clear that’s standard operating procedure. Why go to a reporter — sorry “Journalist” — talking about a subject he barely comprehends when you can go straight to the source through blogs without the seemingly obligatory J-school left wing bullshit.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
The major problem for all of journalism is that they went from local monopolies to minnows in the Pacific. The most successful (relatively) of the newspapers have been those that were always in a competitive environment. The UK has as more successful online papers than the US. They are doing better because they were always in a national market and had to fight harder than imaginable for their share. When competing against every publication in the english world, the UK papers are piranhas let into an aquarium. US papers were goldfish.
The best comparison is local independent TV vs the networks. No one would have dreamed that a local station could beat a national net, but they keep trying when it’s papers. You are not a special snowflake, you are not unique.
The monopolies would have held if every newspaper published in english had refused to go online for free. If you believe coordinating a cartel of thousands is possible, your model will get a nobel in economics and a fields medalfor the math (game theory is an orphan in terms of prizes).
With the tubes everywhere is london/NYC/… There is no local advantage and you can’t live off your bureau or the AP feed. This hits the NYT just as much as anyone (they just do really well written AP feeds). Papers need a hook - unique information that is time dependent or else a stylistic approach that the demo loves. You have to be Bloomberg or Vogue.
WSJ and FT have unique and make $$$, NYT has style, WaPo combines. LAT gets its ass kicked on both.
This all devolves to power laws. Papers are starting to grasp (my locals don’t print stock tables any more), but are inherently resistant. The english media will resemble the UK media in 5 to 10 years. Look at the sites most linked on FARK - a few papers from all over the world, with a focus on the biggest ones in their country.
The final problem is the pretense of ojectivity. Insulting your customers is not a long term success story. Yet so many go for it.
My health prescription - hyper local, state your preferences, find a unique selling proposition, know your subject.
People are succeeding online by a hyper focus on their subject matter. CNBC has much respect because their anchors generally have experience in the industry or have been focused on finance for decades. CNBC has its problems, but they have much more respect than anyone besides WSJ, FT and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Similarly Dealbreaker and Clusterstock are working thanks to focus, knowledge, and an awareness that the world is their competitor. Linking to and breaking against FT WSJ NYT DT TOL NP G&M… also helps.
Dealbreaker (I love them, sorry) ran their asses off iin the past month, updating late on Sunday nights, working through the high holidays, all to break news. They did this with 3 editorial staff, one of whom solely did AM headlines, 2 of which left for a conmpetitor during the crisis.
The new model is lean, eats nails for breakfast and bends crowbars for a light workout, and sees everyone publishing in the same language as a mortal enemy. When the local monopoly accepts this, they’ll be fine. Unfortunately it goes against everything that a local monopoly expects and is why even the premier pubs are at risk.
So end war & peace!
October 9th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
1. The problem with many “journalists” is that they know absolutely nothing about specialized topics. A politician could lie to their face about a complex topic and they’d just dutifully write down what they said without noticing that they’d been lied to. If they did notice, they wouldn’t say anything due to wanting to keep access. In some cases - as with illegal immigration - almost every “news” report is full of lies because the papers want it that way: they or their affiliates profit in some way from illegal activity.
2. There are almost no “journalists” willing to ask candidates real questions designed to call them on their lies or point out the flaws in their policies. If there were, I wouldn’t have spent almost two years trying to push this plan.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
“We devalued our product” is a myth.
“We were no longer a monopoly and could no longer control news as our product” would be more accurate.”
A very lively discussion. Being functionally illiterate I will just make a few points.
Bias in and of itself may not be the issue: historically newspapers were more than just biased, they were creatures of political factions. In the 19th century they depended on advertising from local governments and would pay a real price if they angered the powers that be. While this changed with the penny papers, even through the 1950’s it was expected that there would be bias - indeed people bought their papers in multi-paper markets with this in mind. The one thing that no one would tolerate was boring, and let’s face it, a lot of what is put out is badly written tripe and about as entertaining as reading some of the drearier parts of a deconstructivist’s Phd.
To an outsider such as myself, there seems to be a presumption on the part of the media that they know best and that only news professionals are fit to determine what is news and what it means. The press thinks that only it is pure enough to know what is IMPORTANT & that their biases are not a bias towards a side or sides, but the TRUTH. It is hard to do this when any reasonable person with access to Google can go and evaluate what editorial choices were made, and see other points of view.
What makes this so galling is that many of us now suspect that Journalists are a pretty ignorant bunch. I remember once listening to a report with my then boss/mentor, and remembering how shocked we were when the reporter almost got it right; we assumed the story would be FUBAR. This is a common experience.
And as regards as to who or what level in media organization is to blame, well that is beyond my pay grade but we should all admit that something is wrong and that the problem may not lie with the reading public.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Are journalists CEO’s ? Publishers? Because unless they are, Journalists hardly have control over their destiny to take the blame for the industry’s decline. The decisions about technology, the web, how far to go with the web and staff to commit to it, in addition to content, are made in the boardroom, not in the newsroom.
How many of journalists had an internet capable computer on their desks in the late 1990’s? Not many.
Here is a telling sign. When I was assigned one of those “how far behind are our schools in technology” stories, I alway found the schools were further along and better equipped (at least in NJ) than the newsrooms covering them. The first place I ever saw a flat bed scanner was in a classroom, not the newsroom.
For too long, news organizations treated computers like a glorified typewriter and as a result, journalists worked on machines that were museum pieces.
Who’s decision was it to keep us up to date on technology? The boardroom, not the newsroom.
As far as the Internet goes, the decline in the news business has to do with the people on the top misreading and mishandling the internet. After the dot com bust, there seemed to be a feeling of relief by those at the top of news organizations.
Instead of using that time to research the internet and having a plan in place, the industry ignored it, until it was clear that the business (and readers) were going to the web.
What followed was a frenzy of bad decisions and equally bad news organization websites, which were slow and frustrated readers. Worst of all was there was no model for selling ads on those websites, so they brought in the same amounts of revenue as those nice big double truck ads in the print product did.
What journalists have done is roll with the punches thrown at them through redesigns, refocusing and reprioritizing and downsizing of the newsroom. Yes there are people who resist change like any industry, and they’re learning, adapt or get out of the way.
But to fully blame journalists for what has happened is flat out in error and would only be accurate if journalists are elected to the board of directors, hired as CEO’s or other chief executives. We are not the decision makers, we are the foot soldiers carrying out the orders of the people on top.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
The article and most of the responses omit a large part of Journalism’s problem: Loss of readership, due, not to the Internet, but to the inexorable shift of most reporters to the left of the political spectrum. Note that by doing so they have abandoned approximately 50% of their potential audiences. And all because of their ignorant and slavish adherence to authoritarian principles contrary to those of many Americans. They appear to want to be Europeans, those wonderful people who give us $8.50 a gallon gas,
12% unemployment and numerous other goodies. Well, those of us who once proudly subscribed to Time, The NY Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Long Island Newsday,
\The Bergen Record, Newsweek et al, have fallen off their radar screens as they slipped inexorably to the left. As many have said “They left me. I didn’t leave them.” Now no new chickens are coming home to roost, as readership has fallen (and is still falling) as low as the stock market. So place the blame where ye may but think on this (and sometimes the Bible- you know that book written by those dirty, raggedy jews in a far-off land- is right:)
“AS YE SOW, SO SHALL YE REAP” (fyi: I’m an atheist)
October 9th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Only 52%? You gotta be kiddin’. I would have put it at 252%!
October 9th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Geez… Journalism would be as valuable as ever if they just published the truth - ie. FACTS. It’s simple folks, when they engage in false or incomplete journalism they will always fail in the long run. Simple yes, but true…
Journalism as we use to know it is dead!
October 9th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Oh heck, may as well pile on here. I’m a consumer of news; I’ve read the Wall Street Journal for some 45 plus years now; when I lived in San Diego I read the Tribune; moved to Los Angeles in 74 and have been a Los Angeles Times subscriber since then. Back in the 70’s read Time and Newsweek; (today I wouldn’t use them to line a bird cage). Travelled a lot in my work and read the local papers wherever I went. Still read both USA Today and the New York Times on occasion. [I guess that means I'd pass Katie Couric's test on reading papers].
But I’m watching the Los Angeles Times die–and the Wall Street Journal prosper or at least stay healthy relative to the competition.
Why? Lack of discipline is a major factor.
Discipline in editing: for years the Los Angeles Times simply did not edit its writers in any meaningful fashion. A story that the New York Times could report in 12 inches on the front page would take 50 column inches spread over 3 jump pages in the Los Angeles Times. Did any of those “Chandler trust fund morons” decried by the laid off L.A. Times staffer somewhere above ever buy a box of blue pencils for the editors? Don’t think so.
Blue pencil editors prevailed at the New York Times and at the Journal. It’s a question of respect for the reader and the time he or she has to devote to reading a story.
Discipline in objectivity. The Wall Street Journal impresses because it mostly keeps its editorial opinions on the editorial page–and out of the news pages. At both the LA Times and the New York Times, I can’t figure out where the editorial pages start and stop–it’s pretty much throughout the newspaper. Editors are entitled to their opinions; sometimes they are even interesting and informative–but those opinions don’t belong in what is offered as “straight news”. I long ago concluded that the Los Angeles Times was no longer a serious newspaper. It’s only habit that keeps me subscribing to it–plus the sports pages and some of the cartoons–although editorial bias is on the cartoon pages as well.
So the problem is the product. I don’t much care about reading most local newspapers these days–get most of my news through the Journal. I skim the Times and glance at the New York Times. Some of you young whippersnappers in the press may remember an ill fated automobile called the Yugo–imported from, yes that’s right, Yugoslavia.
The Yugo was cheap; in around 1983 or so, you could buy a “brand new Yugo” for $4,000. A lot of folks jumped at the chance. Three years later, you couldn’t sell a used Yugo for 4 cents–if it was still running.
And this generation of journalists has been palming off a “Yugo” version of journalism–and thinks that the readers should be lapping it up.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
I quit my local paper because I cannot stand the self-righteous phony cynical “ink-stained wretch” persona of the one “star” writer the paper has.
Whoo-hoo! A hack wins an award from a self-aggrandizing award awarder (you know, like Oscars for acting being given out by other actors) and he can tell me what’s right and wrong.
Well, forget him. The guy offends me and then complains I won’t pay the paper to pay his salary.
I’m one of those 52% that don’t trust the media. That would be the media that claims to be objective–an outright lie.
I don’t have to support known liars–or those that cover for them.
October 9th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
With the advent of the internet, journalists faced a huge challenge and a likely reduced readership.
Journalists could have managed this transition more nimbly no doubt, but I don’t entirely blame them for that. I do blame them for their steady march leftward while ladling more and more obvious bias into their work, which has alienated half the country, i.e. half their potential readers. How can that be good business?
Had journalists not done so, they would have had more time to find their way in the new internet world and they would have maintained a relationship with readers in that new world.
As it stands, I for one am gone for good as a potential customer. All I have to know about a new publication, online or otherwise, or a writer
However, journalists steadily marched leftward, ladling in more and more bias until now a majority of Americans no longer trust journalists
October 9th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
I see several problems beyond trust, though that is a big showstopper itself.
The culture has changed dramatically in the last century from when newspapers were in their heyday. People believed everything in the newspapers back then. Nowadays, there is considerable skepticism about the media. My elderly aunts and uncles were often astonished if I disagreed with something in print. My aunt said, “Why would they print it if it wasn’t true?” You’re dealing with a more skeptical audience now.
If you go to an undeveloped country, you’ll see the old credulity about the media that we used to have. That’s why such wild conspiracy stories flourish in that media while they are confined to the tabloids here.
Part of this is a change in values by the journalists. They’re not interested in reporting the facts, but selling their ideas. The empty morality of journalism is illustrated by the Pulitzer Prize that the New York Times displays and refuses to remove that Walter Duranty won by writing propaganda for the Soviet Union on the pages of the Times, including covering up the mass starvation of millions in the Ukraine, the gulag, the executions, et al. The display of that Pulitzer demonstrates that journalists have no honor.
Another problem is that as journalism became a credentialed profession requiring a college degree, its audience became educated, too. All too often as we professionals read the paper and wanders into our domain of knowledge, we realize that the reporter has no idea what he’s talking about. Reporters very often don’t know their beat. It didn’t occur to them that they need to know something besides journalism if they want to write something of value. Reporters are particularly wildly uninformed when it comes to economics, the military, and foreign affairs. Most times they are simply reporting their unexamined and ignorant prejudices.
Most of all, the problem journalists have is they stopped reporting the news and started making the news. It’s particularly true of folks like Geraldo Rivera and Anderson Cooper, who see the news as a backdrop for themselves. I laugh Coopers forays into Hurricane Katrina and abroad because he is always in the foreground of every shot with the news event in the background. It’s the Anderson Cooper show where the news events help display his fine character and superior moral weave.
I was at President Bush’s last inauguration parade in 2005. After he passed, a bunch of thug protestors started throwing snowballs at the cops, chanting against Israel. The cops didn’t even flinch when the snowballs hit them. So the thugs started pulling up the plants from the pots and the hotel and throwing them. No reaction from the cops. Then the protestors started throwing full pop cans. The cops cleared the innocent bystanders back and pepper-sprayed the protestors.
The next day, half the newspapers I read on the net reported the story as if the cops just randomly decided to hose down an innocent crowd. The other half portrayed it as an unprovoked attack on the protestors. It was a vivid demonstration of media bia. I don’t believe anything I read in the paper. You can actually become less informed or disinformed by reading the paper.
Quality is the ultimate problem. The newspapers are delivering stories that are incompetently understood by the writers and tainted with their political bias.
October 9th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Excuse the premature submit above. With the advent of the internet, journalists faced a huge challenge and a likely reduced readership.
Journalists could have managed this transition more nimbly no doubt, but I don’t entirely blame them for that. I do blame them for their steady march leftward while ladling more and more obvious bias into their work, which has alienated half the country, i.e. half their potential readers. How can that be good business?
Had journalists not done so, they would have had more time to find their way in the new internet world and they would have maintained a relationship with readers in that new world.
As it stands, I for one am gone for good as a potential customer. If I know that a writer or a new publication, online or otherwise, is connected to the old world of journalism, I will shun them.
October 9th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
I suspect the decline of newspapers had more to do with content than economics.
In the past newspapers were heavily subsidized by advertising. The Internet has taken away much of that revenue. That revenue source could be replaced by charging more for smaller, relatively ad-free newspapers.
The public won’t pay more, you say? Probably not, but they have begun to pay to watch TV shows that are broadcast for free. They do it for the luxury of watching any time undistracted by irritating ads. That’s one way people are choosing to spend their increased affluence. The same could be true of newspapers.
Why won’t they do the same for newspapers? Perhaps because many of them are disgusted with the content. Look at our Presidential race. The polls are close enough that it makes sense to say that roughly half the country’s adults favor McCain/Palin. What has the press of this country offered them? A media that made more effort to dig up dirt on Sarah Palin in the first two weeks after McCain made her his VP, than they’ve devoted to Obama in the entire 18 months of his campaign.
Was there any legitimate news sense involved in that? Hardly, Palin’s a quite successful, corruption-attacking governor, with an approval rating of 75% among the state’s Democrats. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the press would draw a blank, as indeed they have.
Meanwhile, in the other corner, you’ve got a candidate that almost no one in the country outside Illinois had heard of 18 months ago. You’ve got someone who can’t name any significant things he has done as Chicago alderman, Illinois state legislator, or US Senator. He demonstrable talents are virtually zip. One Obama fan I talked with on the bus could name only one reason in his past to vote for him–he’d gone to Harvard.
If you’ve followed this campaign on the Internet rather than in the traditional media, you’d have to conclude that Obama’s only talent is picking the wrong sort of people for his associates. In lightly populated Alaska, Palin managed to find corrupt officials to root out. In Chicago, where you can almost toss a stick and hit a crooked politician, Obama hasn’t been even upset the lunch of one crook, much less got a crook tossed out of office. Change we can depend on? Hardly.
Face facts. When half the country thinks the Old Media is simply the propaganda arm of the Democratic party, and the other half can get the same tilted news from websites like MoveOn, it’s a wonder anyone subscribes to newspapers. The press simply isn’t doing what the press is supposed to do.
For confirmation, look at the old ‘big three’ TV networks. They display a similar bias and they are seeing similar declines in the numbers watching their newscasts. The problem lies in what the two forms of news media share in common–news content that tilts so heavily in favor of Democrats that tens of millions of Americans have concluded that they’re lying down in bed with the party.
And they’re right.
October 9th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Boy, you struck a nerve. The true hard core believers that think journalists are not at fault for anything have circled the wagons as they are being picked apart by an army of better educated news consumers. Jeff has consistently tried to warn these dolts that the game is up and they must adapt or perish. Their response is to dig their head deeper into the sand and chant “I DON’T BELIEVE, I DON’T BELIEVE”.
Traditional corporate-ran monopoly media is toast. This election and the bailout crisis has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt just what a useless bunch of spares they have become. The entire U