I can't articulate why I think the demise of newspapers is such a bad thing

[cali]

maybe it's sentimentality. I'm fond of hard copy, of reading a paper with coffee, of the physical act of turning pages. Maybe it's my age; I'm in my mid fifties. Maybe it's that I don't see anything on the internet that gives me confidence that cyberspace can actually substitute for a physical newsroom.

Maybe I'm just wrong. I don't know. But the thought of papers like the NYT and the LAT, flawed as they are, disappearing from the national conversation, is one that I find highly distressing.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

1. I worry about the whole "memory hole" concept that's inherent to electronic media.

When print get's it wrong, at least when they're caught, they print a retraction. When an online or broadcast news service gets it wrong, they can fix it like it never happened.

[cali]

3. Thank you for putting your finger on something I think

is very important. I agree that the electronic media is suceptible to "memory hole syndrome".

[sketchy]

Exactly... the Memory Hole problem

Having something in print provides a widely distributed physical documentation of news that is difficult to alter for nefarious purposes like those of Big Brother in the book "1984" by George Orwell. I wish we lived in a world where this would qualify as being too paranoid, but I really don't think it does.

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. Exactly - both the error and the retraction are preserved in hard copy.

With the electronic media, they just re-write history by adding or deleting lines from the original article, and only the revised version is accessible.

[NYCGirl]

2. I think it's largely nostalgia. I agree with this essay from Clay Shirky — we don't

need newspapers, we need journalism.

http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/

[TechBear_Seattle]

4. Here are four reasons why the demise of newspapers is a bad thing

Printed materials are easier to come by: someone buys a paper, reads it and leaves it behind for someone else to read. You cannot do that with electronic media.

Printed materials are harder to censor: Once it is in print and distributed, it is much harder to make the text vanish down the memory hole and next to impossible to claim that it was edited after the fact.

Printed materials require no extra equipment or technology to use: Loss of electricity and hardware failure do not impede your ability to read, whereas access to the internet and broadcast media are much more suceptible to technical problems.

Printed materials are easier to maintain for historical purposes: Printed materials can survive for millennia, but even under ideal conditions, electronic media deteriorate.

[cali]

11. Excellent points. Thanks for the help. n/t

[rurallib]

5. They used to have most of the reporters that would dig into things

Back in my youth, it seems that each paper of repute had a stable of reporters that would never let politicians sleep until they were satisfied with an explanation. Now good reporters are few and far between with many newspapers acting as stenos.
I grew up with the Des Moines Register. At the time it was one of the five best papers in the country. They ahd a Washington bureau and a foreign bureau. Now they are a Gannet paper and little more than a local paper. I have no idea what kind of reporters they have anymore. I almost cry every time I read a DMR thinking what they used to be.

[Peacetrain]

6. Cali, you have to wonder who is going to do the research on the stories..

That is what the media did. Just thinking about Nixon and how the reporters were in some sense protected as they dug into the story.

When that is gone, what will we be reporting, ...each others pre set opinions vs facts?..

[Heidi]

7. A thought-provoking BusinessWeek article: The Journal: Forget Murdoch, Go Nonprofit

The Journal: Forget Murdoch, Go Nonprofit
Dow Jones' plight illustrates why we'd all be better off if newspapers considered becoming not-for-profit organizations
by Joe Mathewson

"I'd love to see the stories you don't publish," my uncle used to say when I was a young reporter for The Wall Street Journal. He was the research partner in a Wall Street boutique and sagacious enough to know that The Journal didn't have room for all the stories we covered each day.

That might just become the worst dilemma confronting readers of The Journal under Rupert Murdoch: what stories aren't in the paper—either because they're cut in the inevitable daily cull, or, more important, never covered at all.

<snip>

It's a shame that Dow Jones and the Bancroft family—like other newspaper owners in similar straits—don't appear to have carefully explored the not-for-profit route. Public broadcasting is superb, well supported by contributions from an appreciative audience. Do we consider it defective because it pays no taxes? Of course not. It produces quality journalism, significantly enhancing our civic life and our democracy.

Aren't newspapers equally important for the same reasons? Isn't The Wall Street Journal, with its formidable coverage of our economy and business, especially valuable to us all, even those who don't read it? Yes—because business and government leaders do, and they heed it. The Journal monitors the world of money, a realm that's vital to everyone. Clearly the paper would be just as valuable, just as influential, under a not-for-profit umbrella, like the Poynter Institute's ownership of the St. Petersburg Times.

<snip>

In effect, a not-for-profit newspaper company operating in the black—and Dow Jones is—would buy its own stock instead of paying taxes. That's a good deal for the paper, its employees, and society, if not for the government.

The full article here: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2007/tc20070719_026107.htm

[Heidi]

8. And another: new idea about newspaper economics: the non-profit option

(Originally published at Editor & Publisher Online)

OWNERSHIP: Journalism professor offer new idea about newspaper economics: the non-profit option
(December 08, 2005) -- Before the Tribune Co. discharges any more
journalists, and before Wall Street kills any papers, let's look at the
economics of newspapers. Must they be at the mercy of executives seeking
bonuses and stock appreciation rather than nourishing a force for civic
good?

Although the obit-writers are greatly exaggerating the death of American
newspapers, we've seen enough advertising and circulation stagnation to
realize that if we don't think imaginatively now about how to preserve
them, we'll have to think very imaginatively later about how we'll get
along without them, both as individuals and as a nation, and that's not
pretty to contemplate.

<snip>

But does "healthy" have to mean "profitable"?

Let's dream for a moment about newspapering freed from the profit motive.
Purists may argue that newspapers, like any other enterprise, should have
to earn their way in the marketplace, and if they fail the market test, so
be it.

More: http://mediagiraffe.blogspot.com/2005/12/ownership-journalism-professor-offer.html

[panader0]

9. I buy a paper nearly every day

My local paper has gotten smaller in size, shorter in length, and the paper is thinner. My gf works for three radio stations and they have changed a bunch too, the local ones bought up by distant corporations, losing their local flavor.

[Old and In the Way]

12. The physical aspects of newpaper reading doesn't bother me.

I grew up in the daily newspaper reading mode, too. But I haven't really read one in months. I'm totally comfortable reading content off the internet. I'll probably have to buy some newspapers over the summer to build up my combustion source for starting my woodstoves next fall/winter, though. :-)

My only concern is how to fund quality investigative journalism and in-depth reporting on all facets of the world outside of us. We have internet opinion/editorial resources by the ton. Serious news gathering and original journalism, not so much. Those are full time jobs and someone has to pay for that. TPM does it and Huffington Post just announced that they are adding staff to do their own original reporting/investigative journalism. But I can see the day coming where the consumer will have to pay for it. Buying newspapers involves getting something with physical substance (paper)...paying money for virtual content will be a harder sell, but necessary if we want to preserve an informed society and institutional democracy.

[Javaman]

13. newspapers are vanishing, but they won't be gone for long...

as the economy fails and we start on the down slope of oil, we will have to rely on power by other means. As a result, a whole sector of society will return to the newspaper because they won't be able to afford the internet nor the energy that powers it.

[michreject]

15. Internet is cheaper than a subscription nt

[ContinentalOp]

18. I think in a real depression the Internet would become dirt cheap.

The infrastructure is already in place. It's better for the owner to make a tiny amount of money off of it than just let it sit there unused. And it would be the last thing most people would give up. Cable and phones would go first since those services can be had for free on the web.

[Javaman]

21. I would like to hope so. nt

[michreject]

14. I, for one, won't miss em

Newspapers no longer report the news. They try and sensationalize an event and slant a story to suit their agenda.

No thanks.

[RT Atlanta]

16. Loss of a good "teaching lesson" too

In addition to enjoying the paper in the morning (I'm about to turn 36), I enjoy discussing the paper with my young children (all younger than 8) and having them see the act of Mom and Dad reading the paper and learning and discussing the news items (and photos) of the day. Makes for a good start to the day in my opinion.

[Heidi]

20. The first words I actually read were from a newspaper.

1967, sitting on my grandfather's lap, sounding out words in "the funnies." It's how I learned to read. I can't imagine a grandparent sitting down at the computer with a little one and teaching the child to sound out words (or even sight read) from an online newspaper. (I guess it could happen, but it sure doesn't seem as personal as the tactile experience of a little finger following the letters on a piece of newsprint.)

[FourScore]

17. Well, actually, the blogosphere relies pretty heavily on newspapers

for information. They do alot of the work that the rest of us refer to and comment on.

[ogneopasno]

19. Yup, exactly. We are approaching an interesting tipping point, I think --

are bloggers going to step up and be the ones to sit through the county board meeting, to spend hours poring through documents in the city hall basement, to fund foreign bureaus, and so on? Maybe some will. But not a lot.

[omega minimo]

22. It's the power of the press. Just because it's historic, don't mean it's obsolete.

[tuckessee]

23. What will happen to the comic strips?

I'll miss Mutts & Get Fuzzy.:-(