MSM RIP
“TV journalism” has been an oxymoron as long as I can remember, but not “print journalism.” My father was an old-school newspaper editor, which is why I still hold print journalists in moderately high regard. But media critic Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post, in a Tim Russert eulogy, explains just how far newspapers (like the Orlando Sentinel) have now fallen:
Under its new owner, Sam Zell, the Tribune Co. earlier this month decreed a 12 percent cutback in content, meaning that the Los Angeles Times, for instance, will be serving up 82 fewer news pages each week. Tribune’s Baltimore Sun announced last week it will cut 100 employees, in part through layoffs, and produce what publisher Tim Ryan called “a more concise newspaper with more local news” — a euphemism for slashing news space.
Randy Michaels, the company’s chief operating officer, said Tribune has begun measuring productivity by how much copy each journalist churns out – and that the average Times reporter generates a mere 51 pages a year, compared with more than 300 apiece at the Sun and Hartford Courant. Perhaps no one has explained to him that writing in-depth stories — say, prizewinning investigative pieces — takes a bit more time.
Note to Tribune — if “journalists” are measured by quantity over quality, then you really have nothing whatsoever over the web. Your journalists are typically less knowledgeable than many of the people who blog on their areas of expertise. And I don’t see how you can match the web for quantity. Nor price, of course. Once your quality is gone, why should anyone pay for your product?
Lee Abrams, hired from XM Satellite Radio as Tribune’s chief innovation officer, has been cranking out colorful memos: “Newspapers strike me as being a little TOO NPR. I like NPR, and their shows like Morning Edition do well. But NPR can also be a bit elitist. . . . It’s all about being INTELLIGENT . . . not intellectual.
Hence the emphasis on quality over quantity. Oops. But wait, the memo gets better….
“BRAGGING RIGHTS: Ever watch ESPN? They OWN sports. Tiger Woods has a hangnail and they will have the exclusive report. Newspapers need to live in that world a little more. Not sensational . . . but a little swagger . . . I still see stories that, well, are kind of obscure. (aka boring).”
But Tiger Woods with a hang nail is not boring? Of course it is — except to sports fans! ESPN focuses on a segmented market. Newspapers don’t. Print publications that focus on segmented markets are called magazines. The future of the Tribune is not looking good.
It’s hard to argue with the notion that newspapers need more mass appeal and a bit more self-promotion. But one man’s boring story is another’s effort at government accountability. And it can be a short slide from catchy slogans to plain old dumbing down.
One Tribune paper, the Orlando Sentinel, launched a redesign last week [see front page above] that makes USA Today look like the Financial Times. The front page is dominated by big photos, big graphics and a strip across the top with blurbs about inside stories, often featuring some celebrity. Each day there are three stories — some as short as three paragraphs — and sometimes one of them is an opinion column, complete with the writer’s picture. Rather than run a full news story on an agreement for the state of Florida to buy a huge chunk of Everglades land from U.S. Sugar Corp., the Sentinel’s front page carried a Mike Thomas column praising the deal. And there are info-tidbits: A story on lightning season ran next to bullet points on staying safe.
The approach jazzes things up, but also makes the Sentinel look like a magazine that swoons over eye-catching art and brevity. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but if newspapers merely imitate online sites, the Web already does it better.
And faster. And cheaper. Maybe newspapers can’t be saved. And the way they are dumbing themselves down, cutting out news, serious science reporting, and the like, maybe they shouldn’t.
June 30th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Unfortunately with newspapers going, we are also losing investigative journalism. I suppose that is why two thirds of the graduates of “journalism” schools go into PR.
June 30th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
I agree Earl.
It’s easier to get away with things if the public has little or no information. Hopefully sites like Talking Points Memo can pick up the slack, but corporate control of the media is making us far less informed than I’d like.
Best,
D
June 30th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
It’s interesting to me that newspapers started a precipitous slide about the time they thought balance and fairness were more important than truth and accuracy.
While there are many reasons for their decline, I think their tendency to be little more than stenographers to power hurt them badly.
Enabling Bush, talking about the global warming “controversy” long after there was none etc. has been an attempt to broaden their audience by not taking sides — but newspaper readers are thoughtful folks. If you don’t give them truth and context they’ll quit coming.
As Eric Severied said, during the McCarthy era:
“Our rigid formulae of so-called objectivity … have given the lie the same prominence and impact that truth is given; they have elevated the influence of fools to that of wise men; the ignorant to the level of the learned; the evil to the level of the good.”
Why would anyone waste two bits on that kind of pap?
When journalism ceased to be a profession and became a business venture, it was doomed.
July 1st, 2008 at 12:01 pm
As a journalist of some 30 years who is today more multi-skilled (in technology) than most all my peers, I find the debate about the future of newspapers already an historical footnote to communication. You guys are still largely wedded (and enamored by) what you can physically read on paper, thrown over your front fence in the morning. The truth is that modern journalism is as relevant to that thinking as the Model-T is to cars, or the typewriter is to computers. Some dopey newspaper like the ‘Back of Beyond Tribute’ may well look good - but it knows its subscriber base is falling alarmingly. It - all the way up to good ol’ Rupert Murdoch - is now hedging their bets by trying to produce a newspaper on line! But don’t you get it?! A newspaper on-line is like a Tyrannosaurus on heat! The new medium is a form of TV /radio journalism on-line, giving recipients a great (when they want it) view of the world in ways that the average Joe can accept, understand and wants today! As a member of the public, I am less likely to read the dribblings of some hack newspaper journo with all his/her biases, if I can get a measured story, not constrained by column-inches or TV-news service time constraints) when I can get much more on-line? The trick for the ‘new’ journalist before us is the guy/girl who can sum up the ramblings and rantings of the on-line community(such as you guys) and succinctly bring that to the public in a short, viewable, consumable way. But guys, get over paper - it’s yesterday.
July 1st, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Russ — Provocative POV. Thank you.
July 1st, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Interesting Russ.
However, this:
The trick for the ‘new’ journalist before us is the guy/girl who can sum up the ramblings and rantings of the on-line community(such as you guys) and succinctly bring that to the public in a short, viewable, consumable way.
May be for the 80%, but for those of us 20%-ers, we want more than cr*ppy USA Today-type sound bites. I may (not Dano, me) be guilty of conceit here, but the 20% that wants more makes things happen (I [not Dano, me] like to think I make things happen occasionally).
So its the choice: chase quantity or quality. I’ll take quality and so will 20% - will there be profit in this number for the future?
Best,
D