[repurposed from here]
When the history of the recent era in journalism/the news business is written, part of the story that we’re not hearing about now is that since the 60s (with the influence of television news, I submit), the news has been about the news itself, about personalities and ratings and not so much about the news as information. J-schools have responded to the changes in the technology by increasing the use of tech, but how does that make for good subject matter experts?
When an organization as rich in talent and capability as ABC news gets something as basic as how the tax code works wrong as well as countless other examples from the past few to 20 years, how can we wring our hands about the demise of these dinosaurs?
Newspapers are a delivery and distribution mechanism, one that people still enjoy using — witness all the papers on front lawns and on buses. The ads, sports scores, actual news articles, editorials, the funnies, all these need to be examined to see what can be delivered using what means. As noted elsewhere (on Omar’s status update: sorry for hijacking), what if the actual delivered paper was just news and a few display ads, with the bulk of the ad circulars and color material online, accessible by an account number like a loyalty card (read: targeted ads, personal recommendations)? People want the ads, I understand that, but does everyone need all of them, or can we let people pick and choose and as a result better sell the space (which of course is virtual: no page counts, no costs to print, and multimedia content can even be used: try that in a fishwrapper).
The causes are many, from the rise of personalities who overshadowed the news (do I care who reads from a teleprompter? Only if he pretends he wrote the story. In other markets they call them newsreaders š ) to the failure of the mgmt to understand that the a lot of what they deliver can be done much more cheaply by someone else *koff* craigslist *koff*
I see a lot of blurbs and articles on how sad it is that newspapers are dying but I don’t get a sense that anyone knows why, even as predictable and preventable it may have been.