I do wonder how we can promote better journalism and standards in the current nearly-free-of-cost environment, as last I checked communism didn’t work. What prompts quality and work ethic in new-school journalism?

Of course not. I was just asserting that the death of newspapers isn’t simply a statement on the quality of reporting and commentating. Sure, there are always mistakes and distortions and simplifications and all that. Always have been. Always will be. Of course, there are mistakes and distortions and simplifications and all that among bloggers and other kinds of digital media, too. Always will be. This is because the work is being done by human beings. I’m not saying “oh, don’t worry about all those mistakes!” Journalists and writers of any kind should always be worried about these things and should always be trying to do better. Do journalists lose touch sometimes, too? Sure.

But I still believe that the biggest problem for newspapers is not that people have given up on news. Lots of people want and devour news. The problem for newspapers is that the revenue model has eroded. Adapting to this is not typically the responsibility of a daily newspaper reporter. The managing editor? Well, maybe the managing editor should be trying to do something about this. But mostly it is the responsibility of the publishers and the executives. I’m not saying they have had easy decisions to make. I think they’re in a tough spot. But ultimately, this kind of stuff is their job.

The dilemma is that changing the print product too much upsets those people who are the very loyal, longtime readers — believe it or not there are many people out there who love that dinosaur known as the newspaper and hate the idea of reading the news online. Really. Newspaper people worry a lot about making these readers, their best customers, unhappy. Of course, papers can follow those people for too long — and follow them right into the grave. Still, they are the bread and butter. So I think a lot of papers are stuck between the past and the future, wondering what to do, standing there like a deer in the proverbial headlights. And, yeah, those headlights might just be Google.

The local paper isn’t losing money because it’s too expensive to cover local news. It’s losing money, and readers, because it’s spending to much time on “news” that I can get elsewhere for free.

Take a copy of your local paper. Throw away the ads. Throw away the wire copy. The pittance that’s left is the local news, the stuff that you can’t get elsewhere. Ask yourself what fraction of their costs went into producing said pittance.

I think that local papers in small burbs can even make money on truly local ads.

Publications that deliver that deliver unique, good, and valuable content have a future as long as they don’t waste money on other content.

Covering the local city council can be unique, good, and valuable.

But maybe everyone else sees something other than what I see at Google News or in the search results.

When I go to Google News or search for “Maersk Alabama,” I get a Google page with their ads which is perfectly fair, after all. When I click through to read the full story from the L.A. Times, I go to the L.A. Times website which has the L.A. Times’ ads on it.

Am I missing something?

Or is it just easier to say Google should pay rather than come up with a real business plan to save the News aggregation business that once was known as “newspapers”?

As has been stated and is obvious, if Google stops linking to these news sites, it would be almost the same as turning those news sites off completely. Where would that leave folks on the internet to get their news from? Drudge? Is that what the newspaper industry wants?

Listen, I get that we need a way to pay for all of this and I firmly believe that the news aggregation portion of the newspaper business is important but we need to come up with other ways to make it work or actually try some of the suggestions that have been made.

P.S. – Objectivity, like perfection, is a fine thing to strive for that can never be fully met. The internet did not blur those lines – people’s desire to get news coming from their own point-of-view did. See the popularity of Limbaugh, Rush.

As with so many serious news junkies, I’ve learned that objectivity or balance can only come in the aggregate.

I’ve always had a wide range of sources – predicated on NPR. Talking of which, here’s a very interesting talk about a study of the so-called echo chamber effect. Turns out that hi-tech news junkies get more inputs from more viewpoints, not less.

There’s no one who understands your prediction better than you, so why aren’t you doing it?

As Scoop Nisker says “If You Don’t Like the News– Go Out and Make Some of Your Own”

Not my expectation…

Just an idea (prediction)…

Why are you expecting someone else to implement your vision?

From my post:

AP Vs. Google Proves Web No Longer Wants To Be So Free

Do you really want to argue that reporters have as little creative contribution as assembly line folk?

I’m pretty sure that it’s not the biz side that inserts factual errors into stories.

The difference is that the computer and internet has given these talented people the ability to be their own publisher of news, literature, music, art, photography etc. The difference is that they used to need a printing plant or have a music publisher, etc. Now they can do it for free or at most become their own publisher for less than $50 per year for a domain name and web site.

They have talent and want to be creative and so they will. There is not enough money to pay everyone for their talents. The real boom in the internet and computers has happened in the last 10-15 years and you can see the writing on the wall. There soon will be no money in any of these fields. Any demand will be supplied by volunteers who need to express their creativity.

I’m sorry your job is disappearing fast. Find another line of work, like so many of the rest of us have had to do. Keep your talent and creativity, because the world will value it. It just won’t pay you for it anymore.

Sorry, that is as close as I can come.