Do you really believe that press credentials are relevant to newsgathering?

Yes, they’re nice status tokens, but that’s actually a bad thing as far as readers are concerned.

You do remember readers, right? They’re the folks in “service to readers” that journalists keep mentioning as their reason for existence.

Much the same applies to press conferences.

And, in almost all cases, newspapers aren’t covering {the blank}, so their death won’t affect coverage.

Now, how do I get press credentials…

Can you imagine the conversation in the statehouse press office?

“You want credentials but you left this line on who your employer is blank. So who is it that you represent?”

Me: “Um, my legion of followers on Twitter?”

We get to the heart of the issue with this column and your post. It is my contention that since the invention of the telegraph and the rise of monopoly wire services (AP, UPI, Reuters), the Dinosaur Media has to one degree of another been an agent of the State. They depend on one another. They share power.

Now that the distribution system monopoly is broken, we finally will have real independent reporting about what government does or doesn’t do.

The general argument that you have commented on today is one that we hear over and over: If newspapers die, who’ll cover _________ (fill in the blank).

I take exactly the opposite view — that journalism has every chance of being better once we are free from the shackles of print. I made that argument about three weeks ago here:

http://jprof.blogspot.com/2009/02/demise-of-newspapers-means-better.html

Your post today reinforces that argument.

Regardless of what any of us say at this point, it’s going to happen. The demise of newspapers has begun and can’t be reversed. Thus, we need to look forward to the opportunities we have to make journalism better.

Jim Stovall
University of Tennessee

A modern state-house news bureau would address at least both markets. They would have a number of journalists covering “state house” in excruciating detail with lots of analysis. This product would be offered for sale on a subscription basis to groups whose livelihood depends on such news. The same group would then supplement their revenues (and draw readership) by syndicating “lite” news to other news organizations in the state. Occasionally, when specific bits of news become generally interesting, less-lite news might be syndicated nationally or internationally — in exchange for revenue splits on associated advertising.

The point here is that you can afford to cover state house issues if you use a multi-level hyper-focused approach. You can address several markets for the same basic news product as long as you adjust treatment, editorial policy, and revenue generation in a manner specific to each market. Also, focus on a limited realm in order to build a dominating expertise in the domain and thus both discourage competition as well as “earn” the ability to charge for content.

If properly structured, it is likely that coverage of state house issues, using the model above, would be vastly better than the coverage provided today. The reason is that in today’s world, state house is at best only one of many areas that are covered by any paper. What I argue for above is an organization that focuses only on state house news. I would expect as well that such an organization would certainly end up with a larger staff of state house reporters than any individual newspaper ever had in the past.

It should also be noted that state house news in one state is often relevant to lawyers, legislators, corporate leaders and others with specialist interests in other states. Thus, there is an opportunity here for an “All State House News” aggregation organization to be formed that provides a cross-state view of what’s happening. This group would focus on linking together stories from individual states into state-independent “issue buckets” as well as providing analysis and insight articles based on reading all the state feeds. The aggregator would also, I assume, serve as a feeder of advertising to the state-specific teams, would resell their custom feeds, etc.

There is a ton of money to be made here. Who’s going to make it?

bob wyman

That’s why when things happen they’re called backroom deals.

So the parts of the legislative process that are visible (like floor debates) are seldom important. They may good copy if the speaker is especially intelligent or foolish, but it is still political theater.

Finding out what is really going on requires dedicated reporters who can establish lasting relationships with staffers, lobbyists and special interest groups. This takes a lot of work, which is why we don’t see much of it these days.

In NY we just had 30 years of state government being run by three men in secret – the governor, and the heads of the assembly and the senate. Maybe with a Dem senate things will open up a bit, but this won’t be due to any achievements by the press.

I don’t see how substituting independent journalists, assuming you can figure out a way to pay them, will make any difference, if all they are going to do is report public activities.

It is the mandate that a properly function press has, to dig out stories that the establishments wants hidden, that keeps a democracy functioning. As the press became part of the establishment it lost interest in shaking things up.

Bloggers may have the passion, but they don’t (yet) have the resources. Notice that the Sunlight foundation is run as a non-profit, just the kind of thing that runs counter the the “what would Google do” theme that one can do good and make money at the same time.

Peter
http://www.twitter.com/corbett3000