Gary Kamiya argues that subsidizing the newspaper industry may be the only way to save the integrity of gritty news coverage. His opinion piece is at Salon.
But the real problem isn’t that newspapers may be doomed. I would be severely disheartened if I was forced to abandon my morning ritual of sitting on my deck with a coffee and the papers, but I would no doubt get used to burning out my retinas over the screen an hour earlier than usual. As Nation columnist Eric Alterman recently argued, the real problem isn’t the impending death of newspapers, but the impending death of news — at least news as we know it.
But the real problem isn’t that newspapers may be doomed. I would be severely disheartened if I was forced to abandon my morning ritual of sitting on my deck with a coffee and the papers, but I would no doubt get used to burning out my retinas over the screen an hour earlier than usual. As Nation columnist Eric Alterman recently argued, the real problem isn’t the impending death of newspapers, but the impending death of news — at least news as we know it.
I can’t help but think we are so enmeshed into content management these days that we aren’t thinking of original news. As Kamiya cites, there is honestly very little original material on powerhouse news blogs such as The Huffington Post or The Drudge Report. It’s basically more in line with mass content and link journalism. I’ve often wondered about both entities business model, their actual staff (I’m guessing it’s pretty much Matt Drudge but I honestly don’t know) and the payment structure for those journalists. I believe we as journalists are preparing for a freelance world.
But let’s walk out into the abyss for a moment, shall we? What would happen if the places that those links went out to started to dry up. Much of what is linked does start out in newsprint and then outsourced, for lack of a better term, to the web product in many cases. Politico does do original reporting as does TPM with Josh Marshall, but these items tend to lend themselves toward opinion and a biased political sway instead of just straight-on news reporting.
I don’t have the answer for you here, but I do know that we all are going to have to watch the trends, and we don’t need to discount newspaper’s relevance although the industry’s financial horizon is very grim right now.
There is a great deal to ponder here.
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