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Editor’s Note: For many observers, the decline of the daily newspaper in terms of penetration and centrality in citizens’ daily lives is a tale of the End of Days. Many of these observers, of course, are newspaper people themselves, surviving or recovering, and so they are keenly aware of blips on the newsroom radar screen. Considering the continuing trend of draconian newsroom layoffs, bottom-line journalism, corporate takeovers and heavy-handed new owners with little or no journalistic background, expertise or apparent affection, the newspeople’s gloom is easy to understand. But are newspapers truly canaries in the coal mine of American civic responsibility and intellectual vigor? Clearly, there’s plenty of citizen engagement in the current election, but there’s also plenty of evidence that the average Joe (plumber or otherwise) is not particularly well informed or engaged, at least as such things used to be reckoned. What do you think? Click on the “Comments” link at the bottom of this WORD entry. Disengagement?
“The decline of newspapers is about the rise of the corporate state, the loss of civic and public responsibility on the part of much of our entrepreneurial class and the intellectual poverty of our post-literate world, a world where information is conveyed primarily through rapidly moving images rather than print. All these forces have combined to strangle newspapers.”
The Funnies: On the other hand, as newspapers strangle (if Hedges is correct), other, er, commentary engages millions of Americans. In case you didn’t catch Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live, these links. But does this refute or prove Hedges’s point...? Click here for Palin, Live From New York.... and here for The Palin Rap.
I'm afraid newspapers are canaries in the civic coalmine. The Internet seems to be effective at mobilizing people for national political campaigns, but what about local issues? If reporters aren't at school board meetings, city council meetings and other public forums, what disinterested party will be? Then it is all about special interests and there is no community dialogue.
ReplyDeleteFrom Guido H. Stempel III, Ohio University:
ReplyDeleteMy reaction is A.J. Liebling's observation from half a century ago:
"By not reporting, there are a lot of things you can avoid finding out."
And, if you don't report, it doesn't matter what medium you're using.
Martha writes:
ReplyDeleteAs a former newspaper reporter, I’ve come to believe that newspapers bear a share of blame for their demise. The three papers I worked at treated employees like garbage. We were told, frequently, if we didn’t like it, others were lined up to take our jobs. Later, when I worked at Microsoft, I was dazzled to be in an environment where employees were treated like the real treasure at a company.
Also, the publisher at one of my old papers just explained a severe staff cut by saying “the business model has changed.” It hasn’t. Either he doesn’t understand business models, or he’s lying. The competitive landscape has changed. The same thing happened to railroads. Companies that survive are ones who adapt to the competitive landscape—not the ones that try to squeeze the dignity from their employees.
I’m sure there are some great papers to work for, and I know there are great people working at papers. The culture, alas, at many tends to be very old-fashioned and conservative. Those are not great traits in a global, technology-driven world.
I agree that a large part of the blame for the health of the newspaper canary in terms of how the industry has driven away talent. There once really were best&brightest in newspaper newsrooms, but try asserting that today. Salaries and bennies are so pitiful that I can't really recruit my students into newspaper jobs, at least not with a very clear conscience.
ReplyDeleteThat, clearly, has an impact on the product, which in turn has an impact on the audience.
Meanwhile, though, back in the old days I didn't have to threaten my news writing students in order to get them to read the friggin' newspaper, but I do now. And these kids--J majors!--still flunk news quizzes that ask tough questions like, "Who is Condi Rice?" or, "Name ONE member of the U.S. Supreme Court," or "What's up with the Lehman Brothers?" etc.
If this is how engaged university students who WANT to be in journalism are, what does that say for history majors and engineers and "civilians," and the climate and toxicity of the civic coalmine?
Ted
Ted, wow, that's pretty depressing to hear about your students. Meanwhile, here's some interesting perspective on the downfall of newspapers:
ReplyDeletehttp://xark.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/10/10-reasons-why.html
The whole thing is wroth reading, but number 8 is especially relevant:
8. Newspapers have already lost one of their key selling points: Social currency. In 2008, all meaningful political discourse -- the essential element of social currency -- takes place on the Web. Print (and televised) political coverage is now but a pale shadow of the real action online.
The fact that sites like Talking Points Memo provide such a robust forum for news and discussion gives me a lot of hope that the fast-approaching post-newspaper society won't be completely bereft.
I just feel lost inside a vacuum of political bashing and mudslinging. I feel like newspapers are a safe haven compared to cable news programs. Honestly, I don't want to vote for anybody, because as far as I can tell from cable news, Obama is a radical Muslim, McCain is a war-hungry lunatic, Biden is a Washington-insider racist, and Palin is a narrow-minded, moose-killing conservative. Which of these do you want running the country? I wish we could just get the real story and quit all this he-said, he-said back and forth mudslinging. But alas, it is not to be. Maybe in another life.
ReplyDeleteAh c’mon Ted :-) People are just getting their news from the Internet. That’s all it is. Not this anti-intellectualism end of enlightened thought BS. I’m sorry, and with all due respect, today’s quote of the day was GARBAGE.
ReplyDeleteI think what people realize when they dig deeper on the Net is that the print newspapers are very limited in the scope of their views and coverage. They’re like going into Baskin Robbins and being offered two flavors. Fortunatley, the net offers about a billion flavors of intelligent (and not-so intelligent) thought. It's a smorgasbord for everyone's enlightenment.
But newspapers are the primary source for local news, and for that reason, I do hope that they recover their bearings. I think that the best papers will reinvent themselves for the 21st Century and will be just fine.
Change is a good thing.
Nicole Coulter
the internet is a "smorgasbord for everyone's enlightenment"?????
ReplyDeleteTo keep the metaphor going, in my opinion, the net is a deli case full of junk food; plenty of stuff to clog up the arteries and fog the brain, but very little to provide true nourishment and nurturing, let alone encourage the capacity to think deeply...
I dont trust anything that comes off the net - there's no way to check accuracy, there's very little attribution and what cross-referencing there is, is often back to other (uncheckable) net publishings...
There's no way to check credibility - for example, you guys dont know who I am and what are my credentials, and I dont know who you are - so what value can each of us put on the other's contribution?
That's why I prefer my news from (reputable) newspapers - there's an accountability and fact-checking mechanism already in place - they are supposed to do what I cant do myself - find, check and publish information, provide credible analysis....
And I dont want to spend hours and hours trawling the net for multiple perspectives - I dont want to be that connected and I dont want to spend so much of my life in front of a computer/phone/organiser screen... my world is out in 3D, with real people, doing real things...
A good newspaper can do all of that for me.... in my opinion, newspapers are struggling because they're, by their very nature, not equipped to compete in the media industry, and they should stop trying....
I concur wholeheartedly. Well said.
ReplyDeleteI think the apathetic ignorance of the electorate angers me as much as the lies they lap up. What did they say in the sixties: "If it feels good, do it.." Now it's "If it agrees with me, I must be right.."
ReplyDeleteJ
"Artificial constrasts overdrawn. Even at their extremes, though, they BOTH represent America. When will we realize that we are a nation of contrasts, the most culturally diverse country in the world? America is a paradox and can only be understood as such. Do you know what paradox means? Look it up. The key to our future is learning how to juxtapose, mix, creatively combine and, above all, balance our opposites."
ReplyDeletePETER BEARSE, Independent Candidate for Congress,NH CD 1 [www.peterbearseforcongress. com]
Pardon the need to reply to this statement that America is the 'most culturally diverse country in the world'.... its just not true.... most other modern, western countries that were born out of British(English)-born colonisation have just as diverse a population and culture - New Zealand, Australia, Canada....
ReplyDeleteJust because your population outnumbers that of those and other countries, doesnt necessarily make you the 'most', biggest, brightest, best of anything....
And those countries have far less (relatively speaking) baggage concerning their treatment of the indigenous populations and didnt build their 'empire' on the backs of slavery...
I agree with you that America should be careful about claiming the biggest, best, brightest of anything. That's often uninformed jingoism and we are far too provincial to be credible. But, on the treatment of native peoples and minority populations, I'm not sure relativity matters. Certainly the Maoris have quite a bit to complain about how those in power have treated them, as do the aborigines in Australia.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the history of treatment of Aboriginal people in Australia is appalling, and that maltreatment continued right up into the 1970s. The Australian government refused to take responsibility for that, apologise and acknowledge/attempt to make reparations until just recently, with the election of Labour (deomocrat) Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
ReplyDeleteThe Maori in New Zealand, on the other hand, had a treaty with the British Crown (The Treaty of Waitangi)almost from the beginning.
From the British perspective, the motivation for creating the Treaty was more about controlling commercial activities and imposing British control over the country, rather than about setting up a partnership between two peoples...
And there are disagreements about what the Treaty (signed in Feb 1840) meant to either side (problems with the language used and translation, as well as the fact that some tribes didnt sign) and it was never ratified, but it was supposed to control the sale of land - only to the British crown - and protect Maori ownership of resources (treasures) and maintain self determination within Maori society etc.
The colonialists didnt honour the Treaty and in the 1860s the Maori Land Wars broke out, which the Maori 'rebels' lost. Maori experienced typical colonial mistreatment, with attempts to force assimilation, the destruction of traditional tribal social structures and the inevitable consequent social and health problems, which left Maori at the bottom of the heap in New Zealand society.
Maori worked persistently to have these issues redressed on 10 October 1975, the Treaty of Waitangi Act, which was to provide for the observance and confirmation of the principles of the Treaty, received the royal assent.
This Act established the Waitangi Tribunal to hear claims of official violations of the Treaty of Waitangi.
Originally its mandate was limited to recent claims, but in 1985 this was extended to allow it to consider Crown actions dating back to 1840, including the period covered by the New Zealand Wars.
During the early 1990s, the government began to negotiate settlements of historical (pre-1992) claims. As of February 2006, there were 20 such settlements of various sizes, totalling approximately $700 million. Settlements generally include financial redress, a formal Crown apology for breaches of the Treaty, and recognition of the group's cultural associations with various sites.
In additon to ownership and control of their lands and fisheries being returned to Maori wherever possible and reparations being made, Maori also now is the official first language of New Zealand, most landmarks and geographical features have had their Maori names restored, Maori history, language and culture is taught in all schools as well as in special Maori 'language nests' for preschoolers - Kohanga Reo, Maori have guaranteed representation in government, Maori participation in tertiary education and representation in the ranks of academic and professional careers (education, law, medicine) etc is rising, and there is a general resurgence in Maori pride, demonstrated by a thriving presence in art, music, literature and film. Not all of the ill effects of colonisation have been undone, but progress has been made...
Which, unfortunately, is not what can be claimed here by the indigenous people of this country.....