Well I guess someone had to say it. In the chorus of blaming the internet and economic stagnation on what can only be seen as the downfall of modern newspapers, very few in the mainstream have pointed to the quality of the newspapers themselves as being ultimately responsible. David Sirota has recently done that:
The most preventable tragedy was the deterioration of quality. Downsized local publications were all but forced to rely on more national content, but that content didn’t have to become so vapid.
Beltway scribes didn’t have to miss the Iraq war lies or the predictive signs of the Wall Street meltdown. Election correspondents weren’t compelled to devote four times the coverage to the tactical insignifica of campaigns than to candidates’ positions and records, as the Project for Excellence in Journalism found. Business reporters didn’t need to give corporate spokespeople twice the space in articles as they did workers and unions, as a Center for American Progress report documents. National editors weren’t obligated to focus on “elevat(ing) the most banal doings” in the White House to “breaking news,” as the New York Times recently noted.
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Thanks for the useful info. It’s so interesting
Jeff,nice post. I’m doing a news reporting course at the moment and the UK regional papers are really struggling. The big publishers who own these papers are receiving less advertising income due to the recession and more competition from the internet which is affecting readership figures. The response has been to downsize staff, and as a consequence, the quality of the newspapers. However, there is still around 100 daily regional papers in the UK and hundreds of weekly regional papers – compared to other countries this is a thriving regional print media industry.
Good news that The Observer will continue on as a left wing national paper – there had been reports it would shut down due to income loss.
All the best, Tom
Hey Tom. Thanks for the comment. You certainly know more about UK print media than I do, but these dynamics you mention — less advertising revenue brought on by recession and increased internet competition — are playing a role in the plight of newspapers in the US.
Compared to the recent past though, local and regional papers in America have been steadily declining in numbers for decades, long before the internet or the current recession (a trend that includes all media, not just print). Rapacious media consolidation has brought on a situation where only handful of companies dominates the US print media landscape. Most of the ostensibly local papers are owned by these giants and merely reprint much of the same content throughout their vast holdings, while minimizing localism.
Hopefully this won’t happen in UK to the degree it has in the US. And keeping a clearly left wing national paper can only be a good thing.
Cheers, Jeff