In a column on the Nieman Lab blog last week, Ken Doctor refers to an earlier observation that “we’ve just about reaching the point (“The halving of America’s daily newsrooms”) where we’ll have half the number of daily journalists working as compared to 1990.”
He then looks at some of the details of that decline in journalism.
Doctor offers the opinion that while the largest national newsrooms are likely to survive the digital transition, he fears for the future of local news and, in turn, democracy (“The financialization of news is dimming the lights of the local press“).
Among many biting comments:
While national/global news companies have cut their newsrooms, they have still maintained sufficient capacity to make their news brands valuable in the digital age. It’s not just the numbers of journalists: It’s a good mix of veteran experienced journalists who know their beats deeply and younger journalists, still early in their careers but natively more digitally inclined.
At the local press, it’s a different picture. As newsrooms have halved, older, experienced journalists have been disproportionately made to feel redundant, and then made sent off. The main reason: money. Older journalists earn more of it, and their cutting makes short-term financial sense.
The result: a disaster whose death spiral seems to be accelerating. When I’ve given talks, I’ve gotten a lot of nods from people in the industry when I show one single slide: A two-liter bottle of Coke selling for $1 next to a one-liter bottle priced at $2. That’s essentially what local publishers have done in product and pricing of print over the last five years, doubled the price and halved the product, a halving that, of course, carries through to their digital offerings.
Any company that disrespects its own products, and those who produce them, probably deserves its eventual fate.
He looks at several cases, The Independent (UK), now going all digital; The Las Vegas Review Journal, bought out and now firmly under the political control of Sheldon Adelson; the Philadelphia dailies, now being turned over to a nonprofit foundation; and the adventures of Tribune Publishing and it’s expansion in Southern California.
In any case, a very interesting column that’s will be worth your while to spend some time reading.
And then, also from Nieman Lab, different ideas of the future (“Brain food: Here are 15 smart people talking for 5 minutes each about journalism’s future“).
I’ve just started to watch/listen to these short snippets. If you’re interested in news, and the news media, check them out.
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One reason why news media have lost readership is that people have slowly come to realize that the selection of which stories to report has become politically skewed, and the actual content in the reports on selected news stories has become biased. Each newspaper or TV network has its own “amen” choir, and each outlet is happy to preach to its choir, which alienates those who want to sing a different tune. Thus the readership of each outlet shrinks down to the portion of the population who love to see news reports slanted the way they like. So I love FoxNews, but make a point of also watching CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, and reading Civil Beat and Ian Lind’s blog and yes, the Star-Advertiser, to keep up with how the misguided are thinking. I’ve noticed that the panel of Republican candidates for President is far more diverse in ethnicity, age, and political viewpoint than the Democrat panel; and the panel of “contributors” and reporters at Fox are far more diverse than at CNN or MSNBC. I’m always amazed when I run into otherwise-intelligent people who are proud to proclaim that they never watch Fox while also being proud to proclaim how open-minded they are and how much they live diversity.
Such an egotistical bearded drama queen
Right back at ya, except it’s hard to see the beard at the tip of that tiny t
At some time in the future, when historians are able to look dispassionately and soberly at these past two or three decades, I have no doubt they will conclude that no individual and no institution contributed more to the dumbing down of the population and the resulting decline of this country than Roger Ailes and Fox News.
I could be wrong Jim but I think you just made Ken’s point.