However, it was a comment made earlier in this thread by “jgogek” that really caught my attention. He said something that a lot of print people like to parrot and I’m curious to know if in fact if it’s a true statement.

“Blogs and so-called citizen journalism can’t do it by themselves. Everybody — TV, radio and blogs — still get most of their information from newspaper reporters.”

Has anyone ever studied the validity of that claim? It may in fact be true, but what context are we talking about? Are we talking about true enterprise or investigative stories? All newsrooms — print, TV, radio, online get blasted with press releases everyday. If a newspaper runs an article based on a story that was pitched to them via a press release or a “beat call” to the cop shop and they happen to publish it before it hits the airwaves or the Internet, does that count as other media “stealing” from the papers when everyone had access to the same information.

Are we talking primarily major markets where this “print theft” is occurring? There are plenty of small market towns in this country where there are television affliates located but no “local” daily newspaper of record. Where are these folks stealing their news from?

Hey, don’t get me wrong, I think newspaper reporters do an excellent job. I’ve just grown tired of hearing how everyone is “stealing their stuff.” Back it up with facts.

In addition to the TV job, I’m also a blogger and full time Professor of Journalism at the University of Connecticut. I’m interested in doing further research on the claim made by “jgogek” and many others. If anyone has any hard data about this, I would love to check it out. Thanks.

Maybe…consider the explosion of content on the net. What exactly is the advantage of print journalists. Politico has become a content generator for MSNBC. With their recent Reuters deal, they have a good chance to dethrone the AP.

Re printcasting, the real secret sauce is that they are building a way to make easy for local businesses to place ads. That’s one of the secrets that made Google Ad Words so successful. The non profit part is seed money, not scaling money.

Consider also that shoppers, local papers and regional magazines have been doing pretty well. So perhaps the new business model is separating journalism from delivery of physical product. Each has it’s own revenue sources. The fact that they have been conflated in newsPapers may turn out to be an historical phase that is no coming to an end.

Consider also why people have bought newsPapers. Was it because of the news? or was it sports, classified and comics?

As for the previous post about crowdsourcing, I love the idea of easily converting digital content into a tangible product with tangible ads. Will it gain mass appeal with crowdsourced content? I doubt it. There’s too much “noise” out there to begin with. But hey, it’s a good idea that fills a niche, and it has lots of potential.