The Future of the News
Very interesting New York Times article on new, primarily internet-based outlets for investigative journalism, often supported in large part on a philanthropic basis. Clearly, this sort of thing, typified by both the local outfits the Times is focusing on and also stuff like Pro Publica and the Center for Independent Media are an important part of the future. I might also suggest a tip of the cap in the direction of my colleagues at ThinkProgress who don’t (yet) do much “reporting” in the traditional sense, but do undertake a lot of original research that brings information to light that would otherwise go unnoticed.
On top of this new growth, one has to assume that despite the troubles in the news business some of the current properties will survive. In particular, though us liberals aren’t going to like it, the global holdings of the News Corporation in both television and newsprint leaves them well-positioned to create some kind of worldwide multimedia news product. And right now of all the currently sinking newspaper and television brands, many will fail and the survivors (I would guess something based on the BBC and then two or three others) will emerge as rival world-spanning big English-language reporting venues.
Ultimately, I think this transition is going to be much less of a disaster for journalism than a lot of people in the business seem to think. What it probably will be is a rolling disaster for journalists in which outlets are consolidated, jobs disappear, lots of people see their wages fall, and everyone sees their working conditions deteriorate as there’s pressure to produce more and more for more venues — web articles, online video, etc.
32 Responses to “The Future of the News”
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November 18th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Yes. The sun is likely to rise tomorrow. Furthermore, much of the Northern Hemisphere will probably experience generally colder temperatures for the next five months, with some warming expected after that.
November 18th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Ultimately, I think this transition is going to be much less of a disaster for journalism than a lot of people in the business seem to think. What it probably will be is a rolling disaster for journalists in which outlets are consolidated, jobs disappear, lots of people see their wages fall, and everyone sees their working conditions deteriorate as there’s pressure to produce more and more for more venues
You don’t see a connection here? When journalism becomes a shitty profession, it will probably start attracting shittier applicants, leading to shittier content.
November 18th, 2008 at 11:02 am
NSinNY said it in earthier terms than I would have, but he’s pretty much correct. The post-Watergate golden age in journalism owed as much to higher wages as it did Woodward and Bernstein; for the first time, the profession attracted large numbers of highly-skilled, college-educated people. Compare a newspaper from 1982 with one from 1968, and odds are the paper will be thicker and the stories will be more in-depth.
Non-profits have their advantages, but the pay scale will never match what a profit-driven enterprise can provide. Moreover, the non-profits won’t just be competing with paid outlets; they’ll be competing with HuffPo and a lot of unpaid bloggers, too. That will depress salaries in the industry and make it a lot less attractive for people in their 20s. If you don’t incentivize good reporting — with living wages or at least the promise of better wages or larger papers down the road — it won’t get done. And that will be a disaster for journalism.
November 18th, 2008 at 11:04 am
exactly.
November 18th, 2008 at 11:21 am
It’s not just a question of a shittier profession - Matt is basically admitting (if you read between the lines) that journalism is on the way to becoming a much smaller profession.
A smaller profession is one with less capacity to investigate issues.
Now the current configuration does employ a lot of journalists specifically not to investigate issues, but that socio-political trend isn’t going to change. The rise of TPM etc. has only stemmed the decline of investigation slightly…
November 18th, 2008 at 11:22 am
While I’m in principle supportive of non-profit investigative outfits, Pro Publica’s recent “expose” about Goldman Sachs and California was an appalling piece of journalism, and arguably illustrates one of the problems with that model. When you’re hawking your copy to whichever outlet will take it, it’s very hard to maintain a wide range beat reporters, which in turn makes it hard to put new developments in context.
November 18th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Brian, so you have any evidence to support this?
My history does not go back to reading the NY Times in 1968, but I believe the NY Times was better written in the 1970’s. That’s memory only, and could be wrong.
I doubt that the 1982 paper ran more or longer news stories than its 1968 version. Probably less. It was a true “paper of record” in 1968, running material which it would not even briefly report now (e.g., full speeches by major figures, such as an ex-Secretary of State).
November 18th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Re Matthew’s comment “I might also suggest a tip of the cap in the direction of my colleagues at ThinkProgress who don’t (yet) do much “reporting” in the traditional sense, but do undertake a lot of original research that brings information to light that would otherwise go unnoticed.”
———-
So has the Center for American Progress figured out how much money Herb Sandler got from selling Golden West to Wachovia for $25 Billion? After taxes, I mean.
http://news.muckety.com/2008/01/30/herb-sandler-and-son-in-law-back-democrats/481
Oh well, no doubt Pro Publica will look into the matter.
November 18th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Journalism will move to the same “star” system lots of other professions able to leverage themselves globally have. The top journalists will get paid a ton and then there will be a large group of also-rans. This will happen because people will want to read stories written by the top people and will be able to arrange their new consumption to only get those stories. We won’t need dozens of reporters “on the bus” with candidates and there will be other consolidation of national and international news reporting. I think we’ll see more in depth analysis available through blog-like formats though. Following the financial crisis and the election through blogs written by experts has been vastly more informative than the NYT front page.
November 18th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
My history does not go back to reading the NY Times in 1968, but I believe the NY Times was better written in the 1970’s. That’s memory only, and could be wrong.
I was thinking more of papers as a whole. Researching a 1970 gubernatorial race in a local paper, I was struck by how short and staccato the reporting was. At most the dispatches from rallies and events were three or four paragraphs. If there was any in-depth analysis, it was relegated to Sunday or not done at all. The paper emphasized volume over quality. The coverage of a 1982 race, by comparison, was much deeper and tried to put matters into context.
That’s obviously just one paper. But the Philadelphia Inquirer’s golden era is thought to have started in 1976 and the L.A. Times was a much better publication in 1977 than it was in 1977. Now, it’s probable some papers regressed during that time, while other strong publications (the Chicago Daily News) folded. But I’ve spent more time than I need to reading through newspapers of the eras and very broadly speaking, the products became more ambitious after Watergate.
The New York Times is a special case; its history and its resources allow it to attract the best talent. Starting in the mid-1960s, A.M. Rosenthal forced the Times to become a better-written newspaper (one of my favorite quotes about the 1930s Times was that it was “edited with a shovel”), so I wouldn’t be surprised if the copy at the Times was markedly better in the 70s than today. But if you were to look at a newspaper in the early Reagan years (again, broadly-speaking), there would be more of an attempt at investigative work than at the end of the Johnson era.
November 18th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
And that should be, “better than it was in 1967.” Apologies.
November 18th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Meh has the only point that matters: “A smaller profession is one with less capacity to investigate issues.” Matt’s got to get past his pride in what he does. A world of opinion writers talking to those who share their opinion, plus a greatly diminished set of mass-media outlets dominated by a few corporations and more easily manipulated by wingnuts who’d rather play the refs (see again: the Post ombudsman and Hoyt in the Times) is not a happy future for the left.
For an analogy, the proliferation of music options beyond AM radio is a wonderful thing, but it doesn’t make the world of ClearChannel any more uplifting.
November 18th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
It’s been a downward spiral for many journalists for years. Magazines have tiny staffs compared to a few years ago, most local newspapers don’t have any reporter over the age of 30 because there is no way to support a family on salaries in the $20s, lots of newspapers and magazines have just disappeared, freelancers get paid less than half of what they were paid 10 or 20 years ago, and then the articles are put up on the Web and sold to other outlets with no additional pay.
November 18th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Dark times, indeed. But I think that it’s also very easy to simplify and say that big newsroom staff = investigative capacity. That’s not true at all. I worked for a paper that won the Pulitzer Prize for a complex investigation undertaken by one (1) reporter, with some assistance from a couple other staff members and three (3) other news reporters taking up the slack while he focused on the project. We’ve accustomed ourselves to the idea of newsrooms consisting of scores of reporters, all with specialized beats, when in fact a few good generalists under the command of a couple solid editors can do very well. That model obviously doesn’t replace the New York Times or the average big-city daily (as it currently exists), but it may be more viable in the future.
November 18th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
What’s the difference between “reporting in the traditional sense” and “original research that brings information to light that would otherwise go unnoticed”?
The latter seems like a pretty good definition of the former to me.
November 19th, 2008 at 1:49 am
“When journalism becomes a shitty profession, it will probably start attracting shittier applicants, leading to shittier content.”
I’m about to graduate from college with intentions of going into journalism, and I’ve been doing informal surveys of the professional journalists I know, some of whom write for the best of the best (NYer, Atlantic, so on). They invariably describe the profession as increasingly “exploitative” of their workers. “I’m not telling you not to do it,” said one. “Just know the terms of what you’re getting into.”
Now, I love journalism, but I also don’t want to go insane working 70 hour weeks and making shit money. Could I do work that’s just as useful and interesting for a think tank, nonprofit consulting firm, or, yikes, the government and retain my sanity and ability to live a balanced life? Probably.
Journalism will maybe be losing people like me — highly-educated, critically-thinking kids who have other options. I want to be a journalist because I love writing and researching and it’s socially useful, but I’m beginning to think I can do all of that somewhere else that would appreciate me more. Behind Matt’s last sentence is an implicit exhortation for journalists to “suck it up,” but why? Can’t we unionize or something? Why should workers in any profession be treated this shittily? Stand up for yourselves, for chrissakes.
“A world of opinion writers talking to those who share their opinion, plus a greatly diminished set of mass-media outlets dominated by a few corporations and more easily manipulated by wingnuts who’d rather play the refs (see again: the Post ombudsman and Hoyt in the Times) is not a happy future for the left.”
Very true. I think that opinion writing is some of the least interesting and least useful stuff out there, barring very few, and even the few good ones would have nothing to say without context and good reporting to reference back to.
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