Enough of David Simon, Give Me David Broder

Actually, The Day in Deadline USA closed because it was sold to a conglomerate -- a media conglomerate, to be sure -- which was going to fold it and take its advertisers. And I'd argue that there's al the difference in the world. There isn't a single newspaper today that isn't subject to the forces I mentioned in such a way that its newsgathering is affected. That's what Frank meant by "playing defense." Some of these succumb. The bigger ones just get more timid. Back in 1952, when Deadline came out, a world without newspapers was unthinkable. I don't believe that's still the case.

 

Newsprint may go away. I doubt it.
Reporting won't. I'm sure of that. And that's all I care about.

 

I love the Wire but I'm a little sick of Simon as well.
He already has a bully pulpit through a TV show, and it seems like you can't pickup a newspaper or magazine where he isn't pontificating on why papers suck.
Or why corporate ownership sucks or why everything just sucks.
Just give it a rest.

 

I say this with all sincerity: There are a LOT of IQ points on this thread. I'd pay to hear a symposium where Fenian, Frank and Mr. Kindred are on the panel. You guys clearly know your journalism.

I agree that the core of it all is good reporting (and writing, and photography). I think it has been all but proven that the best reporting and writing doesn't generate enough advertising dollars to be self-sufficient on the web the way it does in print. (I could be wrong about this. Does Slate, for instance, make money? I sincerely don't know.)

So I need to keep my print product, because its ad rates, even though they're declining, are still pretty high. However, the print product requires an expensive infrastructure that eats up those advertising dollars. And advertisers are becoming less convinced that enough readers are picking up the current print product to continue spending money to advertise in it. It's a vicious cycle.

How do you fix it? By not demanding 20 or 25 percent profit? Fine. How many of you would take a salary cut to ensure the long-term health of your company? I'm guessing I wouldn't. Apparently the guys at the top aren't, either.

In my perfect world, my newspaper does all its daily reporting on the web. Its print product is a Berliner-sized, multi-section news magazine with longer (and fewer) stories and better pictures. All the stories are written with a second-day, analytical bent, and may express an opinion from time to time. It no longer serves as the "paper of record." There will be no briefs, no stock listings, no classfieds. All that's on the web. (I will retain agate, however. Some things are sacred.)

I sell the print edition for $2.25 a day and hope like hell enough people buy it to make it appealing to advertisers. Instead of referring readers to the web site from the print product, I go the other way and refer web readers to the print product. (Read Joelle Writer's in-depth analysis on last night's City Council meeting in The Daily Paper Bugle, on newsstands throughout Lower Podunk. Also: Complete Little League box scores.)

I'm paying more to retain my best reporters and writers and photographers to generate that analytical print copy for the product that is also significantly more expensive to produce. I'm going to need a massive editing staff to churn through all those 50- or 60-inch stories. I save some money because my pagination system just designs everything automagically.

Bottom line: Expenses outpace revenue, and I'm out of business in three years.

Alternatively: I accept a huge donation from a foundation and become beholden to them, which puts me in an ethical quandary when the head of the foundation has an affair with his secretary on the steps of City Hall.

All of my above blather proves conclusively I don't have an answer. I sure as hell hope somebody does.

 

What newspapers should be, should ASPIRE to be, hasn't changed. What has changed is the world around newspapers _ electronic and new media, classifieds going to Craigslist, corporate ownership, etc. Those are the factors that are causing owners/publishers to commit assisted suicide of newspapers.

 

I think it's just as true to say newspapers became bloated on excessive profits through the '90s. Just as true to say newspapers are now returning to newsrooms and profit margins that were acceptable as recently as 20 years ago. It's not suicide, it's back to the future.

Now, let's say the capitalistic system has always worked and that smart entrepreneurs wanting to make money in journalism will find a way to make it. Let's say the 30 greatest newspapers in America force Google and Yahoo! and all the rest of the parasites to pay a 10th of a cent, maybe less, for every hit on a newspaper's story. Why, after all, should a googol-billionaire enterprise get our work for free? I guarantee you that smart people are trying to end that.

The glass half-full.

 

When someone visiting the "parasite's" Web site clicks on a newspaper story, they get directed to the newspaper's Web page for the story, right? So how does that steal away traffic? I'm thinking it exposes and offers up the story to many more potential readers who otherwise wouldn't have gone to that particular newspaper's site to begin with.

 

How nice of them!

There's still the little matter that the creator of the content does so at some expense, and the people linking to it benefit from that content at basically no cost and with no permission. Now whether the originator does or doesn't benefit from this doesn't really change the fact that the aggregator makes lots of money off the labor of others without the creators having any say in it.

 

Still not seeing how the originators suffer, other than on some scale of "fairness." If Google and Yahoo didn't exist, would the newspaper make more money from more clicks on its stories or less money from fewer clicks? I might never bother to click on the Plain Dealer's Web site if I live in Phoenix. And how is this any different from what bloggers do, excerpting stories while providing links to the original content?

I'm no big advocate of the aggregators. I just don't see how they hurt, as long as they direct their visitors to the originators' actual Web sites rather than providing the content completely within Google, Yahoo or the rest. Just skipping the Plain Dealer's home page can't mean much, if I wouldn't have clicked on its site at all, right?

Seems like this is almost promotional, like a columnist going on a local radio show to talk about his piece in the paper. Some listeners will say, "I know his opinion now, I don't need to read him" but others will be made aware of the column and seek it out.

 

Newspaper websites as well as the parasites are in competition for a limited pool of internet advertising. Both the Plain Dealer and Google are using the work of the Plain Dealer to attract advertising to their websites. The Plain Dealer paid for the work; the others didn't. Forget about fairness. It's theft.

 

Theft. Period.

 

Give it up, Dave.
FB is going to pound his left-wing ideology into this hole no matter how poorly it fits.