What’s news worth to you?
As an aging news junkie it’s only natural that I closely follow the travails of the industry. Maybe some of you follow what’s happening in the media, too.
One of the most fascinating stories has been taking place in Boston, a city I dearly love. The largest and best paper in the Northeast, the Boston Globe, is owned by the venerable New York Times, arguably the best paper in the world. The Globe has been losing money (so has The Times). The NYT company has demanded deep cuts at the Globe, under the implicit threat of closing the paper. Meanwhile, other big city papers — The Post-Intelligencer in Seattle, the Rocky Mountain News in Denver — have ceased publication. There’s even considerable speculation that The New York Times itself is vulnerable. Recently the company was forced to negotiate an infusion of $250 million from billionaire Carlos Slim, a rather unsavory business character who mostly operates monopolies in Mexico.
Here’s my question: Does that worry any readers out there? I’ve been at this business long enough to know the heavy lifting of journalistic reporting always has been done by print newspaper reporters. Usually, what you see on TV news or the Internet is a follow-up to stories originally published by newspapers. What happens to “news” as a commodity if the trend of troubles at newspaper companies continues? A lot of the trouble stems from the current recession, but not all. Signs of more systemic problems had been evident for years.
Reporters have to be employed and paid by somebody to do that deep gathering of facts and information. And don’t say bloggers will do it. Look for yourself. Most blogging is just noise, commenting and opining on material originally gathered by professional news reporters.
Smaller town newspapers, like this one, are experiencing tough times, too. Most, however, are in better shape than their big-city sisters, whose costs and overhead are enormous. That doesn’t mean, though, that the circumstances threatening metro papers cannot also consume small-town journalism, eventually. It might just take longer.
So, what does the opportunity to read and know the news mean to you? To a free country? To future generations of Americans? To your community? What’s it worth to you?
Just because it’s always been one way does not mean it always has to be that way.
An article in your paper yesterday about USC basketball coach Tim Floyd cited Yahoo Sports for breaking the story. News will always be important, even if the organizations that produce it change.
There are tons of relevant web news organizations – Yahoo, AOL, Slate – that produce content. For a long time newspapers have lived off high profits and not planned for the future. They wasted millions of dollars on their own glory. Now their worried about their future. Like other business, if you don’t make something individuals value, you fail (unless your a bank or a auto maker). Someone else will pick up the mantle and make a buck.