Reading 3: “Out of Print,” Alterman
In his latest article for The New Yorker, Eric Alterman charts the decline of the American newspaper as we know it. He finds some reason for journalistic optimism in the work of the more successful news blogs including The Huffington Post. But, he posits, where would such blogs be without the traditional news outlets to feed them material? Will blogs and other news Web sites step up to fill the gap in serious reporting or will they continue to play off the work of others? Some other interesting ideas here, too. Post your comments by noon, April 7.
April 3rd, 2008 at 6:14 pm
I liked this piece because, as Lippman would have appreciated, it was educational.
The court of public opinion is scary. It is ironic how far the Supreme Court has gone to protect a fluid public discourse, only to see it polluted, vapor-ized and fragmented. Small talk is now all talk. Nic Kristof wrote a great piece about this on March 30: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/opinion/30kristof.html
As a journalist, I am concerned more about the apathy of the readership than the media evolution. Evolution and extinction are two different things. Are papers dying? Yes. Is news dying? No. Let’s worry about how to pay for the bandwidth and investigative reporting needed to convert paper-credibility to the Web.
I wrote a piece on this before school started. I focused on new technology that has good potential. If interested, go to sollylieb.blogspot.com - it’s the first entry. Please keep in mind that this was PRE methods.
-Sol
April 3rd, 2008 at 11:09 pm
I couldn’t agree more with what you said: are papers dying? Yes. Is news dying? No. Whenever someone confronts me with “you want to be a journalist? you know newspapers will be extinct soon…” I am incredulous that they actually think news reporting will go away just because ink and paper do.
A very well-written, very thought-provoking article that did not fail to acknowledge the many sides of the print vs. online journalism debate. Alterman calls the relationship news blogs have with traditional newspapers “parasitic,” and points out that Internet news sites do not employ the “armies of reporters and photographers that newspapers have.”
I really enjoyed the discussion of Dewey vs. Lippman, and the role they believed journalism should play in a democratic society. News blogs definitely embody Dewey’s belief that the value of journalism is conversation, not truth. However, as editors of some news sites have experienced, discussion forums can quickly become overrun with dirty language and narrow-minded ideas. We need both Dewey and Lippman: professionalism in journalism, as well as give-and-take between those who gather the news and those who consume it. I like how Peretti said internet news sites are “alive in a way that is impossible for paper and ink.” The Huffington Post tries to strike a balance, with editors keeping a sharp eye out for a professional-looking front page, but then having the “party in the back.”
Think of internet news like reality TV shows– the actors don’t always know what they’re doing, but they’re true to themselves. What’s interesting is that more and more there is no difference between those who gather the news and those who consume it– if you read and keep up with the news, you’re very likely to contribute to it, because now anyone with an internet connection has access to the stage. And unlike lawyers and doctors, there’s no standardized exam journalists must pass before they can publish, for better or for worse.
April 4th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Alterman’s conclusion that the decline of the American newspaper and rise of internet news blogs will cause the loss of “a single national narrative and agreed upon set of facts by which to judge our politics” is an extreme exaggeration. The failure of the news industry to defend its purported position as the gatekeeper of a national political dialogue is not because of increased online traffic to the Huffington Post or the proliferation of amateur journalists, but because of traditional media companies’ reluctance to adapt to consumer’s preferences and digital technology.
I disagree with Alterman’s statement that news influenced by community conversation will diminish the level of first-rate journalism. If the level of first-rate journalism diminishes, it will be because first-rate journalists and media companies fail to adapt to a digital world and fail to engage in meaningful conversation with their audience and sources.
Internet based news has greater strength and potential to keep people safe from human injustices than newspapers ever have because the exposure of these injustices is more readily available. The legions of journalists and foreign correspondents may diminish, but those who survive and adapt will have a much more powerful and broad reaching vehicle to share their stories and enlighten with the world.
April 5th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
I thought that this was a very well-written piece. Having read ‘The Vanishing Newspaper’ by Philip Meyer before coming to Medill, I was pleased that it was referenced.
I also thought that ‘The Simpsons’ reference, when Nelson commented that “your medium is dying!,” was amusing, and I found it morbidly sad when the article stated that more Americans believed in flying saucers and 9/11 conspiracy theories than the concept that mainstream media can achieve a modicum of balance.
In my opinion, the state of the newspaper in comparison to the Internet is akin to Nintendo’s amazing success with its Wii gaming console. The best way to understand this is to position Nintendo as the internet and Sony/Microsoft as established forms of media. While the latter two were merely focused on the status quo of operations which for games was the concept of more, better, faster, etc., Nintendo took the approach of broadening its horizons using less resources, much like the Internet is doing with news.
Interestingly, the same problems facing the Wii in some ways echo the current challenges of internet news/blogging. While the ’system’ of Internet news is strong and growing, the content behind it, with some exceptions, has yet to reach comparable quality with ‘traditional media.’ The Wii is the same way; the system itself is great, but the content on it, with few exceptions (anything published by Nintendo) is questionable. Most gamers I know struggle to name at least three third-party Wii games.
Sony/Microsoft, representing traditional media, are currently supported by ‘hardcore’ gamers as they can be counted on for producing ‘traditional’ experiences, much in same as ‘traditional’ media can be counted on to deliver news in a ’standard’ way. However, consumers of both mediums, games and newspapers, are clamoring for innovation. Whether or not it can be delivered will determine the fate of these companies and mediums.
April 6th, 2008 at 2:19 am
I’m not so sure ink and paper will cease to exist any time soon. At least, not anytime TOO soon. While newspapers are dying, I’m hesitant to believe that all will die. I like having something tangible to hold and get tired of surfing the internet and staring at the screen. I do think what makes blogs more appealing to newspapers is the formula the Huffington Post capitalized on: making news a shared enterprise.
I’m not sure if new blogs will need to continue being parasitic in order to succeed. They will have to be parasitic on the quality of traditional media though. Like Joyce pointed out, forums and comments are often riddled with narrow-minded viewpoints. Hopefully that’s not what our news will become. For a news blog to step up and fill the gap, and to no longer feed off traditional media outlets, I think they’d have to become online newspapers — have all the staff, resources, etc and simply be online instead of in print.
I don’t believe in the complete objectivity in journalism myself. I do believe in fair and balance reporting … in that we are transparent and own up to the fact that news can’t exactly be unbiased. News blogs have the transparency newspapers lack.
April 6th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
I actually do have some conerns about the loss of “a single national narrative and agreed upon set of facts by which to judge our politics” — sift through comments on any given political blog about the two Democratic candidates and you’ll find people on both sides with vehemently different views on not just who would make the better President, but the facts about each. For instance, a staggering number of people are operating under the belief that Barack Obama is a Muslim, and are voting at least in part on that belief. It’s not information they got from a traditional news outlet, but no doubt can find what they consider credible info online to support it.
No doubt, there are countless advantages to our luxury of instant communication and endless amounts of available information, but unrestricted info that passes as ‘news’ does come with some risks.
April 6th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
In his article, Alterman cited statistics saying that nine in ten Americans believe the “media consciously seek to influence public policies, though they disagree about whether the bias is liberal or conservative.” Though obviously the goal of the media is to be neither liberal or conservative, wouldn’t it be fair to say that the media DOES seek to influence pubic policies? I see the central purpose of the media as informing the public, and a well-informed public will be equipped to influence public policies through the traditional forms of protest, petition, etc.
I think Alterman is leaning towards the idea that eventually, mainstream and internet media will meet in the middle and we’ll ultimately not be able to distinguish one from another. The traditional newspapers will cut back a bit and go totally online, while the smaller news sites and blogs will grow bigger, hire more staff, and be totally online.
April 6th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Alterman did a fantastic job in this article of describing the many sides of this debate. The practical, the philosophical, the financial, the political. It’s all very complicated, but I think I agree overall with his conclusions about where journalism is headed.
As for what it means, I’m not so sure. In my opinion the “single national narrative” that newspapers tell isn’t important so much because of a newspaper’s facts or access to information, but because good newspapers introduce readers to topics they might not seek out on their own. Good websites could do this, too. But as of yet I haven’t seen the formula mastered.
And then the issue of reader participation. I think it’s great overall, in spite of the petty bickering and nonsense, because of the limitless amount of information that could be available to anyone. We have to get better at sifting through it for sure. But I definitely appreciate the move away from elitism.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:52 am
I think almost all blogs have to work off the publications of other organizations. It’s the World Wide Web. Unless the blog has contributers to your blog who actually go out into the field across the globe, nation, or whatever physical territory the blog is geared toward, then it has to work strictly off the work posted by others on the Web. Any “blog” that would actually have these people however, would not be a blog. I would then consider it a news service!
When I think of a blog, I think of news junkies who have nothing better to do than to post their thoughts on what is actually going on out there, thinking that their opinion actually matters. These self-fulfilling websites are spawning millions of would-be columnists who need to voice their opinion in some way to others who are consuming the same information and translate it in the same way.
Because of this inherant bias, the “reporting” any of these individuals would do would be deliberately slanted, and to me, and work they produce would be entirely useless.
It’s buyer beware out there though; everyone is free to read what they want, and trust who they want - no matter what the truth is. I would just hope that they can tell the difference from a news source, and a blog.
…so now that I have an F for the quarter
April 7th, 2008 at 2:52 am
I completely agree with Erin about the significance of a ’single national narrative.’ The more and more specific information outlets become, the bigger the potential for readership to fracture off into their own directions. And people are drawn to reading viewpoints that they share. The more specific and narrowed-down the news source is in its opinions, the less exposure we all get to ideas that are out there. And this goes for all sides of the debate, and both sides of the political spectrum. There’s incredible value in cultivating a society that will listen and acknowledge viewpoints it strongly disagrees with, but perhaps as we move into an age where we choose news that mirrors our own lifestyles and opinions, there will be less and less of this happening.
April 7th, 2008 at 3:42 am
One aspect not mentioned is the simple fact newspapers are no longer our window to the world. Although the business and technology related to it has played a role in its decline, the most important factor in the devolution of the newspaper is the evolution of society over the past 40 years. We are flooded with cars, roads and highways to take us from side of the country to the other. We’re traveling overseas. Globalization has shrunken the gap between somewhere like Flint, MI and Seoul. We can use the Internet not just to access our favorite blog but also read the newspaper from any country across the globe. Sadly, the newspaper industry hasn’t been able to fully adjust to that fact.
April 7th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Ya definitely wonderfully written article that tries to cover as much as this complicated issue as possible. Lippman would be proud (sarcasm). So much is changing right now that is very difficult to see how this is going to all shake out. I do see the point made about how blogs and sites like the Huffington Post feed off of mainstream Journalistic sources. But these websites are aggregating and analyzing the news in a way that people want. And people want the news. I find it difficult to believe that journalistic endeavors will disappear when there is such a demand for them. Newspapers will move their focus to the online medium because its cheaper and where the eyes are. Ink and paper will always be around, but as our generation ages the physical newspaper will become something nostalgic, or necessary as our eyes will be destroyed all the small text on these flickering computer screens.
Point is we have time to figure this all out. The media companies don’t because their losing money and having trouble figuring out what to do, but none of us work for them yet. Demand for the news is here and will always be.
April 7th, 2008 at 10:44 am
An excellent article, but I take issue with the idea that “to imagine that philanthropy can fill all the gaps arising from journalistic cutbacks is wishful thinking.” There’s a lot more story here than the author lets on.
Alterman dismisses philanthropically-funded news organizations and doesn’t even mention other forms of not-for-profit news gathering and delivery. Organizations like American Public Media and Minnesota Public Radio, as well as the Public Library of Science, and the Wikipedia are shining examples of a not-for-profit path to deliver media.
Radio and the Web are similar in that the marginal cost to deliver news over both mediums is itsy bitsy. There are no trucks, ink, or printing plants. Just journalists, and a couple of techies to keep the shop running.
Add in that production of audio and text can now be done on commodity equipment, using free and open sourse software, and the cost of running a news organization is reduced to just above the salaries of the staff.
For-profit and non-profit shops both benefit from these advances, but the non-profit world seems to have been the innovator in this space, because, I imagine, that they have always had fewer resources, and are always forced to improvise.
Minnesota Public Radio’s Public Insight Journalism program is a perfect example of this. With a little bit of relatively low-tech software, they have created a huge database of volunteer sources, enabling them to very cheaply gather newsworthy information.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:07 am
People keep making the point that blogs are killing straight news and I don’t buy it. Sure, more people are going to these sites to fill their news needs, but just as some people like reading liberal blogs, there are people who still have an appetite for objective news. News papers will have to learn to share their audience with opinion pages, but the Huffington Post will never supplant the New York Times. A lot of people go to the Huffington Post to get perspective on the straight news they already read earlier in the day.
It’s like Jon Stewart says, people don’t come to his show to learn about the news because his show wouldn’t be funny if you don’t already know what’s happening in the world.