When The Wandering Eye got his first job as a cub reporter, everybody was saying newspapers were becoming extinct. Forty years later, it looks like they were right.
On Tuesday the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ceased to exist as a “newspaper” in the traditional sense. The venerable (founded in 1863) daily will no longer publish a print edition; it now publishes only on the Web.
“The bloodline will live on,” Roger Oglesby, the paper’s publisher and editor, told employees Monday. But the new virtual P-I is a pale, anemic shadow of the former incarnation.
The Web version of the P-I has a staff of 20 instead of the paper’s 165. Also, as the New York Times put it, it will “resemble a local Huffington Post more than a traditional newspaper,” with heavy emphasis on “commentary, advice and links to other news sites, along with some original reporting.”
The P-I is the first major American newspaper to entirely eliminate its ink-and-paper format, but the experts predict it will not be the last. And that makes The Eye more than a little uneasy.
Okay, the printed daily newspaper is an anachronism, an obsolete and doomed technology. And the Web is a new and exciting and dynamic communications medium. But that doesn’t mean websites will be, or ever can be, an adequate substitute for newspapers.
From breaking up New York City’s Tweed Ring to exposing the Watergate scandal, newspapers have always done the heavy lifting in this country when it comes to investigative journalism. Even today, papers like the Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal initially report most of the stuff that eventually makes it to the Web. They provide the basic grist for the legions of bloggers (including this one) to blog about.
Without the reservoirs of talent and experience found in the newsrooms of newspapers, how is the real work of journalism – the mundane grunt stuff as well as the big Pulitzer-caliber stories – going to get done? Who’s going to do it?
Without the vast resources (human and financial) of a Washington Post and a New York Times, would Watergate or the Pentagon Papers ever have come to light? What website could – or would – tackle stories like those today?
Maybe someday there’ll be a Web news operation with the resources, the professionalism and the dedication of a great newspaper operation, but it’s hard to picture it. The trouble is that nobody has figured out how to make a website pay enough to cover that big a nut. And with all the free Web content out there it’s not going to be easy to persuade people to spend $20 or $30 a month for a subscription to a news site, no matter how good it is.
This article appears in Mar 19-25, 2009.
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Should we take bets on the exact date of the BULLetins long expected demise?
The Tweed Ring breakup can largely be attributed to the evidence supplied by a single informant acting alone, Sheriff James O’Brien, not so much to the results of investigative journalism.
Similar, the leak of the Pentagon Papers was completely due to the courageous efforts of Daniel Ellsberg, not so much the news media. Let’s give credit where credit is due. Ellsberg leaked this information to several media outlets. I’m sure if bloggers existed back then, they would also have been included.
Watergate on the other hand is probably a good example of investigative journalism. Although to be fair, the criminal investigation had already started because of the prosecution of the Watergate burglaries and it’s unclear how far Woodward and Bernstein would have gotten without the help of William Felt.
But it’s telling that we have to reach all the way back to Watergate to point to a significant example of courageous investigative journalism. Does that sort of journalism truly exist any more?
“The Tweed Ring breakup can largely be attributed to the evidence supplied by a single informant acting alone, Sheriff James O’Brien, not so much to the results of investigative journalism.”
But it was the newspapers, primarily the NY Times, that reported on the Tweed Ring’s corruption and generated the public outcry that eventually brought it down. The editor of the Times reportedly turned down a $5 million bribe to stop publishing stories about Boss Tweed & Co.
“Similar, the leak of the Pentagon Papers was completely due to the courageous efforts of Daniel Ellsberg, not so much the news media.”
No, not completely. Again, it was the Times that published the Pentagon Papers, and fought a costly legal battle for the right to do it, setting an important First Amendment precedent (no prior censorship) in the process.
“But it’s telling that we have to reach all the way back to Watergate to point to a significant example of courageous investigative journalism.”
There are other more recent ones; I chose that because it’s probably the most famous example in modern times.
I agree that newspapers in general are not doing the quantity and quality of investigative journalism that they used to. But I don’t see websites doing it either. Publishing every rumor that you hear doesn’t qualify as “investigative journalism,” even if some of them turn out to be true.
> But it was the newspapers, primarily the NY Times,
> that reported on the Tweed Ring’s corruption and
> generated the public outcry that eventually brought
> it down. The editor of the Times reportedly turned
> down a $5 million bribe to stop publishing stories
> about Boss Tweed & Co.
It seems like you’re confusing the medium with the message. At that time in history, that was only way to get the message out. With the rise of alternative non-print media, this may longer be the case.
In any case, aren’t you shifting your argument? You used Tweed Ring as an example of newspapers doing the “heavy lifting when it comes to investigative reporting” when the major Tweed Ring exposure published by the paper did not involve any “heavy lifting” or “investigative reporting”. Now, you’re making the more modest claim that it was just the act of publishing this information that brought down the Tweed Ring. Perhaps this second claim may be true, but it’s a very different one than you started with.
> No, not completely. Again, it was the Times that
> published the Pentagon Papers, and fought a costly
> legal battle for the right to do it, setting an
> important First Amendment precedent (no prior censorship)
> in the process.
No sorry, this is oversimplified. The precedent established was not “no prior censorship” but a more nuanced one; no prior restraint of expression unless you can prove that grave and irreparable danger would result.
Again, the Times may have been first on his list but Ellsberg sent the same information to many other outlets. As soon as the government enjoined one paper, another would get in the act until the feds were trying to do damage control against 17 other newspapers. Even the TV networks got into act. Finally, Ellsberg managed to get Alaska Senator Mike Gravel to put a copy into the Congressional Record, and act protected by the Constitution. This last act occurred one day before the Supreme Court ruling that established the precedent above.
Without discounting the contribution that the Time, et al, made to legal precedent, we really should acknowledge that it was Ellsberg that drove all of this and it was Ellsberg that risked serious prosecution, including life imprisonment, for the cause. Again, no heavy lifting investigative journalism was at work here.
> There are other more recent ones; I chose that because
> it’s probably the most famous example in modern times.
> I agree that newspapers in general are not doing the
> quantity and quality of investigative journalism that
> they used to. But I don’t see websites doing it either.
> Publishing every rumor that you hear doesn’t qualify as
> “investigative journalism,” even if some of them turn
> out to be true.
You claim there are more recent examples. I agree. Unfortunately, they appear to be the rare exception rather than the rule.
But, your snide dismissal non-withstanding, there are also some examples of original reporting via online venues also. Granted, there is plenty of chaff mixed in with the wheat but unfortunately the same can also be said of the print media.
For what it’s worth, I share your concern about the demise of print journalism and perhaps there is some argument to be made that we will lose something important that cannot be delivered by online media but so far this argument has not been made convincingly here.
ric: Okay, you’re obviously very well-informed about the history of the matter and I’m not going to argue, although I think the point about “prior restraint” vs. “prior censorship” is a quibble.
I hope it’s true that online media can fill the gap soon to be created by the demise of newspapers, but so far I have not seen any online journalism to compare with the best of what newspaper journalists have done. And on a day-to-day basis the online media simply do not do an adequate job of covering the news. Or maybe they do if one has time to visit dozens (hundreds?) of them and sift through their contents to separate the wheat from the chaff, as you put it.
> … I think the point about “prior restraint” vs.
> “prior censorship” is a quibble.
That was not what I wrote. You left out the part about the burden of proof. Seeing as how there was significant division in the court on this issue and that many civil libertarians argue that prior restraint of expression should *never* be allowed no matter what “danger” the government claims, this point is certainly not a quibble.
> I hope it’s true that online media can fill the gap
> soon to be created by the demise of newspapers, but
> so far I have not seen any online journalism to compare
> with the best of what newspaper journalists have done.
Perhaps. It’s a bit difficult to judge this since online media is still quite young and I’m not sure what criteria you are using to compare the two. Perhaps the following might give us some hope:
http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2008/11/20/are-these-the-biggest-moments-in-journalism-blogging-history
> And on a day-to-day basis the online media simply do
> not do an adequate job of covering the news. Or maybe
> they do if one has time to visit dozens (hundreds?) of
> them and sift through their contents to separate the
> wheat from the chaff, as you put it.
Of course, this same problem exists with the current print news media. Much of what passes as news content these days is useless at best and manipulative at worst. The blog proponents claim that this is one of the areas where online media shows greater promise; the self-correcting nature, the on-going dialogue, and the multiple layers of aggregation, interpretation and filtering may actually make it much easier to find good sources of news online.
NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof makes another good point: On the Web, people tend to segregate themselves into like-minded groups. They seek opinions and information that confirm their existing views rather than challenge them. Conservatives congregate at the Free Republic site; liberals flock to The Huffington Post or Daily Kos. Although they don’t always do a perfect job of it, newspapers at least try to be objective and look at issues from a variety of perspectives. (It should be noted that this is a fairly recent historical development; in the early days, newspapers were openly biased and often were established and operated by political factions.)
For the peanut gallery, Kristof’s column referred to above by HBM can be found here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/opinion/19kristof.html
It’s an interesting point but I wonder if Kristof noticed an apparent contradiction in his supporting evidence. He cites a 12-nation study that found “Americans the least likely to discuss politics with people of different views” but fails to note that the online phenomena is not limited to Americans. Surely the same movement to online sources of news is happening in these other 11 nations. So why doesn’t it cause the same result?
Clay Shirky attempts to answer the question… If the old model is broken, what will work in it’s place?
http://tinyurl.com/thinking-the-unthinkable
(Apologies for the tinyurls and the multiple posts… routing around this forum’s brain dead spam filter)
John Christoffersen talks about the idea of converting newspapers in tax-exempt nonprofits.
http://tinyurl.com/nonprofit-newspapers
A special report from the PEW Project for Excellence in Journalism on some emerging independent new ventures worth watching.
http://tinyurl.com/pew-newventures
A open source project pioneering a “community funded reporting” model.
http://tinyurl.com/spot-us
ric: I agree the spam filter is a pain in the ass. I hope something can be done about it.
“I wonder if Kristof noticed an apparent contradiction in his supporting evidence. He cites a 12-nation study that found “Americans the least likely to discuss politics with people of different views” but fails to note that the online phenomena is not limited to Americans. Surely the same movement to online sources of news is happening in these other 11 nations. So why doesn’t it cause the same result?”
I don’t think Kristof is saying the shift to online information CAUSES people to seek out others of the same political persuasion. More likely it’s the other way around: People like to have their own opinions confirmed; therefore they tend to seek out other people (and websites) that confirm their opinions. Cognitive dissonance is painful and most people try to avoid it.
Interesting tidbit on costs and technology:
http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/1/printing-the-nyt-costs-twice-as-much-as-sending-every-subscriber-a-free-kindle
“Not that it’s anything we think the New York Times Company should do, but we thought it was worth pointing out that it costs the Times about twice as much money to print and deliver the newspaper over a year as it would cost to send each of its subscribers a brand new Amazon Kindle instead.”