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The Dawn of the In-Depth Tweet?
“[On] the day the last newspaper is published—a day that seems to be rushing at us like a brick wall in an old Warner Bros. cartoon—I will not be surprised if the nation’s various crooks, crumbs and corruptors fail to shed a tear. But the unkindest cut of all, the ‘Et tu, Brute?’ dagger in the back, is the fact that, according to a new survey from the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, most other Americans won’t, either. Pew found 63 percent of respondents saying that if their local paper went down, they would miss it very little or not at all. It is the insult that compounds the injury, by which I mean the growing sense that we are working on the last major story of our lives, and it is an obituary. Ours.”
Editorial Comment: The 140-character obit?
“[On] the day the last newspaper is published—a day that seems to be rushing at us like a brick wall in an old Warner Bros. cartoon—I will not be surprised if the nation’s various crooks, crumbs and corruptors fail to shed a tear. But the unkindest cut of all, the ‘Et tu, Brute?’ dagger in the back, is the fact that, according to a new survey from the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, most other Americans won’t, either. Pew found 63 percent of respondents saying that if their local paper went down, they would miss it very little or not at all. It is the insult that compounds the injury, by which I mean the growing sense that we are working on the last major story of our lives, and it is an obituary. Ours.”News from the Copy desk: BYU recalls 18,500 copies of Daily Universe to correct “apostle” misspelled “apostate.” Picky, picky. Click here for story.
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Perhaps, if we weren't continually spoon-fed the news, the little bites wouldn't have had an impact.
ReplyDeleteI don't think you CAN spoon-feed the news to people, and that's the problem in this ADD culture. You can spoon-feed spin and sound bites, but to really understand the news takes time and work.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Leonard that the public response to all of our angst and indignation regarding the demise of daily newspapers seems to be one big yawn. The part that I really hate is being reduced to crying, "They'll miss us when we're gone!" I hope, hope, hope that's true, because it will mean that people still think everyone should get a fair shake and the government of the people, by the people and for the people really should be just that. If people believe that, some form of journalism will emerge, but if not, then we really are doomed.
I wonder if part of the problem is that people think that exposing "crooks, crumbs, and corrupters" is the job of law enforcement. They see journalists as extraneous, so what difference will it make if the investigative journalist becomes extinct?
ReplyDeleteThe other part of the problem is that journalists tend to define journalism that 'matters' only in terms of investigative journalism that exposes "crooks, crumbs, and corrupters." That's what we market to people, so that's what we've conditioned them--and us--to see, but that quasi-law enforcement image is extraneous in the minds of the one and grossly exaggerated in the minds of the other.
It get complicated, Ted, because so many local papers have gone down the toilet. The Monterey Peninsula Herald, now The Herald, is a piece of crap. The quality of the journalism is so poor – commission and omission – that few people with a double-digit IQ get it. And it’s too bad, because it was once a very good paper. Knight-Ridder hired some idiots to manage it, and probably pulled some money out of it, and now Dean Singleton owns it, and dead fish wouldn’t allow themselves to be wrapped in it. J-school students write better.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the survey that says 63% of people won’t miss the paper if it dies,
ReplyDelete“The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars but in ourselves.” And I am talking about the public here, not the papers. Perhaps we don’t deserve newspapers anymore.
On the BYU recall, chalk up another one for spellcheck.
JS
We would miss the newspaper, Ted, for we get two daily and even though they are not the papers they once were we would still miss them.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think of the new regime? We are not all that happy with it and dislike much of what he is saying and doing abroad. Godspeed, Jane.