With news coming out that the Boston Globe may be pushed to chapter 11, and the fact that several big name newspapers across the country are shutting down or switching format (the Christian Science Monitor went online only) I've been thinking about the decline of journalism of the past. Television journalism, with some obvious exceptions, focuses a lot of its time on sensational stories and gotcha journalism. My favorite thing lately is WHDH and the Fox boston affiliate going after public employees that are making decent money... by working over 100 hours a week - vilifying them for busting there asses to provide for their families and providing vital public services at the same time.
To me, the best journalism has always been one of the strong suits of the major newspapers. Writers that are able to get to the heart of the issue and know the inside actors and can actually get some access to their subject matter. It's not "gotcha" journalism in the sense that it is meant to be in-depth with analysis of subject matter, not a quick hit on some unsuspecting bus driver who happens to be 50 with 4 kids under the age of 18. Instead of trying to evoke rage among subscribers, it tries to find answers, reasons, draw connections, and provide explanations for the question at hand. These stories fall in many categories: human interest, business, politics, science & health, you name it. The point of this post is that I'm worried that we may be losing high quality journalism in the mass media.
One of the investigative journalism programs on tv is Front Line. Their programming is done by WGBH in Boston and is top notch, I've seen and heard of many of their programs used in academic settings. A loss of funding for that program would be a big blow to investigative journalism on tv.
What would fill the void if major publishers like the Globe went under? Would blogs have the same effect? I don't think so.
While we've seen a large jump in citizen journalists and bloggers, I don't think that most have connections and access to produce content of the same caliber as traditional journalists with big name outfits do. I also don't see most bloggers willing to invest the time and effort into this kind of thing. Blogs are typically narrow in scope and have no funding for these kind of things.
Enter: Arianna Huffington and the Huffington Post.
This past Sunday the Huffington Post announced their new investigative journalism fund. Their mission statement is essentially to combat the consolidation of newspapers and the cutting of investigative journalism by hiring laid off reporters and providing resources for staff members to conduct quality investigative journalism. They also want the citizen journalist to submit their own pitches and story ideas, and they'll be picking up many of them I'm sure.
One issue that I see with this is the ideological bent of the HuffPo (as its known). Being a far left blog it's easy to dismiss all of their content as ideological in nature, and in general being opinion oriented. Perhaps this is an opportunity for some rebranding for them, and to tap into another audience that they may not be reaching with their current format. Maybe its just a great idea to help preserve some of the best journalism out there and provide a way for these laid off writers with a way of maintaining cash flow. Either way, I think we come out ahead as the reader.
So what do you think about the fall of print journalism, the rise of the citizen journalist, and the merits of blog based investigative reporting?
Newspapers going under is such a shock for everybody. They've been around forever. Bill Simmons has a great discussion about this on his podcast (which I now listen to constantly).He raises a point that the newspapers arrogance played a part in their downfall. No one thought they'd go down, especially them. We survived radio and tv, bitch. So they didn;t properly assess it's capabilities and see to what extent it could help them. Then they freaked when people started reading blogs and such for their news and put all their content online fo' freee.
ReplyDeleteI think this ties in with Larsen's post about facebook/twitter and how the internet has changed people. People go online for news because it's instantaneous. You don't need to wait till the next morning to see really happened. The reason the newspaper survived other challengers was because of the reasons BK brought up. They had the best writers and the inside-access and were able to release the best product. If you hear about something on WEEI, you still check the sports page the next day for specifics. Simmons makes a good point that they threw that all away when they put their paper online for free. People would still pay for the Globe or the Times' news because the free options were of lower-quality. He makes the analogy that now it's like going to a restaurant and paying for a meal, or having the exact same food brought to your house for free. The only reason to go out is because you like the experience of eating in a restaurant..much the way people still buy papers because they like the experience(tradition?) of reading it over morning coffee or whatever.
In any event, it's a very concrete sign of the times.
My journalism professor would always say there are always going to be people who want that feeling of holding a paper and reading it on the train or in the doctor's office or whatever and I agree.
ReplyDeleteIt's much more concrete than the internet. I've been published online and in print and the print one is just much more of a thrill than online.
It's also tough for me because the field is where I studied. It makes little sense for me to join a newspaper because it takes years at one to gain any sort of relevance. But what else can I do? I can't just write for Deadspin or Kotaku -- mainly because those don't pay well at all and wouldn't hire me anyways. I have a feeling the next crop of journalism grads are way more fucked than I am.
I second Simmons' podcasts, particularly the ones with Klosterman and the old ESPN ombudsman. They're funny and informative and make total sense coming from a guy who was essentially the first internet-famous writer.