Journalism’s Future
Posted on | October 30, 2009 | 1 Comment
Paul Keep, the newly installed editor of The Grand Rapids Press, spoke Wednesday on the future of newspapers, in prepared remarks delivered to the Press Club of Grand Rapids.
Keep’s thesis is straightforward: The Internet and the global recession have proved to be a double-whammy, slashing at advertising revenue and forcing newspapers to make sacrifices such as reporter layoffs and reduced printing schedules. He also acknowledged as problematic the widespread business model of selling newspapers at the box but offering the same content online for free.
Indeed, there is a widespread sense that something is amiss in the business of journalism. The folks at Poynter and E&P seem to see it. Even Al Neuharth, the founder of USA Today, recently commented about it. The fundamental problem is that newspapers have fixed expenses but declining revenue. In recent years, publishers have tried to staunch the flow of red ink by trimming variable costs like labor, or even by modifying the size and frequency of press issues, although these efforts are now producing marginal returns.
Conventional wisdom is that the longstanding practice of giving away the store for free online has hurt print-ad revenue and pushed readers from broadsheet to broadband. Perhaps this is so; many newspapers developed their Web strategy in the early days of the Internet rush, and never bothered to fundamentally alter their business model as the technology matured. It may have made sense to offer free online content as an inducement to develop brand loyalty in an era when a minority of households incurred 10 or more hours of online traffic per week; nowadays, that marketing imperative has long since evaporated.
As newspapers decline and fold, it is suggested that professional journalists will gradually disappear from the scene, with serious implications for the health of the body politic.
But the problem with this analysis is that it equates newspapers with journalism, a point nicely made by Jeff Jarvis of CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism. The fact that newspapers may be ineffectively managed doesn’t mean that the practice of journalism is thereby imperiled, no matter what the comprehensive recommendation of Leonard Downie and Michael Schudson (who seem to favor a government bailout of newspapers) might suggest.
Journalism is a practice first and a business second. If the business side should falter, journalism as a tradecraft will endure. As such, the operative question for the American media market must be this: What do we do to nurture the practice of journalism if newspapers begin to fail at a critical rate?
The dirty secret of the media world is that newspapers tend to be the footsoldiers of reporting — the Marine lance corporals to the majors and colonels of network television. Newspapers have traditionally been focused on in-depth newsgathering and analysis, while the TV and radio guys have been dependent on their news budget planning from their local print counterparts. While some local TV and radio stations do a decent job of newsgathering, their reporting side, especially for complex stories requiring in-depth research or analysis, is comparatively weaker. Why? Because the mediums of television and radio emphasize brevity and impact, with stories encapsulated in brief segments. The logic of the medium militates against comprehensiveness of scope.
This observation is not a criticism of radio or television journalism. Many folks who work for these news outlets are capable professionals, but they function within a paradigm that simply does not encourage hyperlocalism, in-depth analysis, or deep investigation over time. So far, only newspapers have managed to pull that off, and all other local media is usually correspondingly derivative.
So with newspapers losing capability, what happens to the quality of radio and TV reporting? Good question.
Of course, it is premature to write the obit for the newspaper industry. The barons of broadsheet and the titans of tabloid are certainly capable of either reversing their financial performance (with the right mix of cost-cutting and the provision of new paid services), or partnering with other media outlets to provide a different value proposition for their customers.
That said, let’s assume that most local newspapers continue to lose capacity. So far, cost-cutting measures have meant (as with The Grand Rapids Press) that seasoned reporters and editors have left the payroll. Some newspapers are reducing the size of their press issues — either literally, by moving to smaller-sized pages, or by printing fewer total pages per issue. In any case, the chief victim of newspaper downsizing is the core long-term reporting function. News analysis, in-depth investigations, and other critical work will be displaced with writing from low-paid stringers or wire copy, and entertainment programming will increase at the expense of hard news.
Without dragging up the usual cliches about the value of a robust hard-news organization to protect the public interest, let it suffice that communities across the nation will feel the loss acutely over the coming years. Political leaders will be less accountable, for starters.
If high-quality journalism, as independent from newspapers, is to thrive in the new media environment, then the profession must cultivate new members who have a passion for the craft and an ability to dog a story — even if the new breed of reporter lacks J-school street cred.
In mid-September, The Rapidian launched; it bills itself as an experiment in citizen reporting. Funded by local foundations and managed by the Grand Rapids Community Media Center, The Rapidian is an online news source that attempts to provide hyperlocal news and commentary through a team of unpaid citizen reporters.
Over the last six weeks, the results of The Rapidian‘s experiment are mixed. Some articles have been provided, but entire classes of content have no stories, and much of what has been shared so far has been “soft journalism.” It is unclear whether the operative model at The Rapidian is sustainable in the long run; the practice of journalism is too involved to be a hobby to anyone other than opinion bloggers — although we certainly wish The Rapidian the best of success.
One alternative model that has promise is actually spread across the nation already — that of the college newspaper.
Once upon a time, I served as an editor of an independent, non-lab college daily. We produced newspapers Monday through Thursday with an average daily press run of 12,500. The student editor-in-chief had absolute content control subject only to ongoing performance review by a multidisciplinary, independent board of directors. We paid for eight- to 14-page full-broadsheet newspapers (including at least one full-color plate) solely from display and classified advertising revenue.
The EIC supervised eight full-time section editors. These section editors, in turn, managed eight to 15 staff writers and photographers. The staff were compensated at $12 per published submission, while most section editors (except the salaried EIC and news editor) were paid per published newspaper.
One of the chief tasks of the paid editors was to directly cultivate new writers and provide meaningful assignments. Staff were generally not freelancers; they wrote what was assigned, while retaining latitude to cultivate sources and contacts and submit story ideas.
Why can’t this model work for community journalism? Instead of having expensive newsrooms staffed with veteran reporters, why not have a smaller stable of professional journalists closely supervising more fungible local writers? Not the current string-writer phenomenon, but a news organization built around the direct engagement of citizens who do not identify as professional journalists, with just enough infrastructure to permit a coherent newsgathering enterprise.
Consider the possibility if this model were applied to The Rapidian. Instead of a free-for-all of unpaid writers, who may or may not have had training in the fundamentals of journalism, a cadre of dedicated and paid editors would recruit and cultivate local writers, who in turn would supply the content at low cost but with high quality. With paid journalists directing assignments, a comprehensiveness of coverage — instead of scattershot, I-write-what-I-want submissions — would provide value to readers.
Who knows? Perhaps it could even be monetized; a weekly news analysis and wrap-up tab could be printed, replete with ad content and everything.
Almost like a real newspaper.
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One Response to “Journalism’s Future”
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November 1st, 2009 @ 8:12 pm
Thanks for you thoughts.
A few notes, as a 13-year veteran of the city’s “stringer nation” (the only — only — difference between me and my newsroom brethren, BTW, is that they MUST get dressed before they show up for work):
The “widespread sense that something is amiss in the business of journalism” has been in full force for nearly 15 years. It is not a sense: it has been all-consuming, as any journalism web site will attest. That newspapers have “never bothered to fundamentally alter their business model as the technology matured” is patently false: an in-depth perusal of our industry over the past 15 years would reveal an earnest, and yes desperate attempt from Year One to address the issue: Pundits said “Charge for it;” others said “You’d be idiots to charge for it.” Nobody knew what would work. These were, and are, uncharted waters. For most major new outlets, it is still not clear.
Yes, at the GR Press, seasoned reporters have left the payroll as a result of budget cuts. Make no mistake: plenty of reporters remain who are passionate about their craft, who take the role of journalist deadly, deadly serious. I cannot think of a single reporter who is not willing to “dog a story.” It is our life’s blood.
Getting paid $12 per article? Wow. Not worth anyone’s time. Not 20 years ago, not now. THAT is why that model cannot work for journalism today. Somebody has to be willing to pay qualified people to drive to and sit through the zoning board meetings, planning commission meetings, the fourth grade science fair, at a rate that compensates them for being unbiased, as opposed to writing for the PR firm hired to represent the residential developer, or the PR firm hired to promote their particular brand of magnifying glass. Face it: many assignments are boring and purposely so: it takes a seasoned journalist to ferret the news from a lighting ordinance proposal and help show readers WHY this is relevant to their lives.
I agree that the Rapidian needs to throw some cash behind qualified reporters ( and I want them to succeed!). I also teach college news writing, and these young people are bewildered by the sheer volume of spin in the world — they seem to want to give anything to be somewhat assured their “news” has not been filtered through the great PR machine — they are hungry for it.
Somebody has to be willing to pay for it.