Internet, I am going to vent about something near and dear to my heart: the newspaper industry. Depending on whom you ask, we are a) on life support; b) need to be; c) not quite there; or d) going to BOUNCE RIGHT BACK!, as soon as this little recession/housing market thing is over. This vent session comes on the heels of having read this piece in Esquire and this one in the New Yorker within a few days of each other. The first is a first-person account from a former reporter at the Baltimore Sun. The second is more academic about the industry. I pay attention to such matters because our local newspaper is how I make my living, as does my husband.
News of layoffs and cutbacks and other fat-trimming in our industry has been the daily fare for some years now. Massive layoffs at the big dailies like New York and L.A. Paper chains bought and sold (as ours was about two years ago). Top editors quitting, in protest of having to cut news staffs down to the bone.
Adding to the need for surgery: An increasing number of people under the age of 30 get their news from the Internet, via computer or hand-held device, and often tailored to their news taste. People like me, increasingly, are dinosaurs because we start the day at the breakfast table reading the daily paper. I have done this for as long as I can remember.
Also compounding: We in the industry generally have not adapted easily to the times, eg, the Internet. We've been hauty in our belief that people need to read the newspaper "in its traditional form, dammit!" Meanwhile our stocks and revenues are tanking. We journalists bear some responsibility. (Slow though we may be, we are playing fast catch-up locally, at Ledger-Enquirer.com. A shameless plug.)
The writer of the New Yorker article predicts, based on research he uncovered, that the last newspaper in the U.S.--THE VERY LAST--will roll out in the year 2043. But before that, what is the tipping point? What is the point where people (readers) say, "You have cut to the bone and we don't recognize you anymore"?
Internet, what say you?
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3 comments:
As I wrote Brad Barnes on his blog recently, I am the best hope for the newspaper business. I can't imagine starting the day without a paper. Unfortunately, I am 67 years old so counting on me is chancy.
I was in heaven when I lived in DC and both the Post and the NYT were at my door when I woke up. Now I wake up, get the L-E and read every section. Well, some time I skip sports.
L-E.com disappointed me recently, though. As did the TV station your paper cooperates with. I seldom watch local TV news and I had missed the story about the hospital shootings. I turned to your station at 7:00 and they said "go to LE.com for the latest news." I did and there was no recent posting. The next day when I checked there was also no recent posting. I would expect when such local news happens that the paper would assign at least one reporter to file the very latest details on the website and to have a reporter available to the TV station. I know the problem. You do not have enough people That goes back to the problems you discussed. Stockholders take priority over readers and viewers. Sad.
Yes. ... But about the shootings, I know we had the story updated multiple times during that day (because Mr. Owen did a lot of it) and the next day. So I don't know what the problem was there. ... I'm also interested in how general news magazines are doing. We subscribe to several.
hmmm...well....I must shamefully admit...we don't subscribe to a newspaper. Our local one is a) full of propaganda, and b) so poorly written that it is embarrassing. I also grew up reading the paper cover to cover, and it was a hard habit to break. But my sweet husband got tired of listening to me rant daily, "Will you listen to this?! What moron wrote this?! That is not even a complete sentence! Blah, blah, blah." So he made me quit. No more newspaper. I am still a news junkie, but I get it now from the Internet and from Fox News Channel. And 15 minutes of local tv news in the morning.
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