David Simon's prepared statement before Congress

[SockPuppet]

I realize there's another thread about the journalism tesitmony, but I came across Simon's prepared statement, which I gather he read during his testimony. (Apparently, he left out the part about kicking out the teeth of newspaper execs.)

This is well worth the read.

http://commerce.senate.gov/public/_files/DavidSimonTestimonyFutureofJournalism.pdf

 

[azom]

Good read.

 

[Fredrick]

It was definitely worth the read and I agree with his great essay/speech.
I can't help but think Congress upon hearing all this, won't be very passionate about the issue of saving newspapers.
I mean, deep down, having a watchdog out of the way, I think will not be seen as a bad thing by Congressmen.
I could be wrong, but I can't see much outrage over the demise of our business.
We've always been outsiders. They'll let this one business die and/or move over to citizen journalism. They will think citizen journalism sounds just peachy.

 

[fishwrapper]

That's a very good statement. Shotgun style. He hit everything in a limited time.
I would also like to read what Steve Coll had to say/read. Because, that dude is pretty much the smartest man around. Certainly in our industry.

 

[Dave Kindred]

Simon's delivered statement was a greatly abridged version of the prepared -- as was Coll's. (I haven't checked but the statements may be up on the Senate Commerce Committee website.)

I love Simon. In a roomful of charcoal pinstriped suits, he comes in frayed knock-off Levis and a collarless v-neck shirt under a heavy shirt, all in black. Looks like a lumberjack between trees. Sits two chairs over from Arianna Huffington, all stylish, her hair more expensive than Simon's wardrobe. At one point, sounding like Zsa Zsa Gabor (you old folks explain that to the kids), she says the idea of newspapers getting paid by aggregators for their stuff "is so antiquated." Which causes Simon to fall back in his chair, hands clasped to his bald head, exasperated, because he has made the case, brilliantly if I may so, that news has value and newspapers won't exist, and don't deserve to exist, if they don't value their own work enough to charge for it, someway, sometime, somehow.

The primary legislative message delivered by the people who care about journalism -- Coll, Simon, a Knight Foundation officer, the Dallas Morning News CEO -- I'm leaving out Huffiington and the Google v.p. because they care only about themselves -- was that the newspaper industry could use a "limited antitrust exemption" so it could at the very least convene a meeting and talk about an agreement that would allow them to demand payment from aggregators and set prices. Antitrust laws now forbid any such talk. There was also talk about turning newspapers into non-profit institutions, but the Dallas guy said that's impossible because the endowment would need to be so huge -- for Dallas, with a $30 million newsroom budget, he said the endowment necessary to throw off the $30 million each year would need to be $1.5 billion.

Favorite note I made during the 3 hours: "Simon-Huffington, steel cage match, ppv, $49.95."

 

[Twoback]

A 1.5 billion endowment -- doesn't seem like that much to me. I don't know where the money comes from, but it wouldn't seem to be so far out of reach. And remember, just because they'd be non-profit doesn't mean they wouldn't be making some money to cover their costs. A lot of papers out there still make money, and they're still in trouble because they're not making enough or Wall Street does not perceive growth.

 

[SportsDude]

Once the government is paying for them, newspapers will no longer be a watch dog.

 

[fishwrapper]

Simon made that point quite clear.

 

[Kato]

Does anyone have a link to the video of Simon? Shockingly, the Huffington Post only has clips of Ariana Huffington's testimony.

 

[Baltimoreguy]

"The parasite is killing the host."

Great line about online aggregators.

"I am offended to think that nyone, anywhere believes American institutions as insulated, self-preserving and self-justifying as police departments, school systems, legislatures and chief executives can be held to facts gathered by amateurs pursuing the task without compensation, training for that matter, sufficient standing to make public officials even care to whom it is they are lying or from whom they are withholding information."

I think this is a great point. The fear of being hung out to dry on the front page of a major metro paper used to be a very valid threat. That seems gone, to me. What powerful pol is ever going to return a call on a contentious issue from some guy who runs a web site out of his basement? And that's in the unlikely event that an unpaid blogger would ever even make such a call.

We know now - because bankruptcy has opened the books - that the Baltimore Sun was eliminating its afternoon edition and trimming nearly 100 editors and reporters in an era when the paper was achieving 37 percent profits.

Wow. I didn't know that. Way to kill the golden goose.

But after that, I have to admit, he loses me with his single-minded fixation on trashing (not by name this time) John Carroll and Bill Marimow as edtors who "had arrived from somewhere else, and if they could win a prize or two, ... would be moving on to bigger and better opportunities within the chain."

Yes, Carroll did leave to become editor of the LA Times. Sue him. And Marimow quit rather then carry out a fraction of the newsroom cuts that have since happened in Baltimore.

 

[GBNF]

Rock the **** on, David Simon:

http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.LiveStream&Hearing_id=7f8df1a5-5504-4f4c-ba34-ba3dc3955c61

98 minutes in, is Simon's testimony

You do not, in my city, run into bloggers or so-called citizen journalists at city hall or in the courthouse hallways or at the bars where police officers gather. You don't see them consistently nurturing and then eventually pressing sources. You don't see them holding institutions responsible on a daily basis. Why? Because high-end journalism is a profession. It requires daily full-time commitment by trained men and women who return to the same beats day-in and day-out.

 

[Dave Kindred]

"I am offended to think that anyone, anywhere believes American institutions as insulated, self-preserving and self-justifying as police departments, school systems, legislatures and chief executives can be held to facts gathered by amateurs pursuing the task without compensation, training for that matter, sufficient standing to make public officials even care to whom it is they are lying or from whom they are withholding information."

Even John Kerry smiled at that one.

 

[GBNF]

Man Kerry is hitting the Google lady back pretty hard. This is very interesting.

 

[PopeDirkBenedict]

A differing view:

http://gawker.com/5243523/david-simon-dead+wrong-dinosaur

 

[LongTimeListener]

Yeah, a differing and entirely self-serving view, that Gawker piece. You can always tell when someone from old media hits home about paying for good, solid professionalism because the shrillness of the blogosphere goes up about nine octaves when anyone tries to call it what it is: stealing. I especially like the part where he says of Simon, "Apparently he hasn't been there in a while."

Here's the Washington Post article David Simon did about that very topic. He WAS there and makes the point that he didn't see bloggers pursuing that police shooting either.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/27/AR2009022703591.html

I live in the Bay Area, and I can tell you that not one of the blog stories Gawker cited has made one degree of difference in anybody's life. No change has come about as a result of any of those investigations. I haven't read the stories so I can't comment on their reporting quality, but the guy unwittingly makes Simon's case quoted a few posts above, the "sufficient standing to make public officials even care to whom it is they are lying."

I don't know if the kid wants to bone Arianna Huffington (solid choice btw) or get a paycheck from her, but he has a lot better chance at the former.

 

[J-School Blue]

While the Gawker piece wasn't entirely wrong, it's an idealized view of a small majority of bloggers. And, frankly, even that ideal? I was a city hall reporter. I knew gadflies. I took calls from gadflies. I pursued stories after being bitched at by gadflies. I do not want to rely on the city hall gadflies for my news. There's no denying these people are valuable due to their obsessiveness, but they often have agendas of their own that are just as skewed as the cities they're hammering away at, and they aren't shy about making accusations that the facts don't support. Not saying blogs by these people aren't interesting reads, and informative ones on occasion, but the idea of that becoming our primary source of "journalism" chills me to the bone.

To be clear, I think citizen blogs have their place as an information source. They are not, and I hope for society's sake never will be, as a primary source of reliable, in depth information.

 

[Andy _ Kent]

UGH! Arianna Huffington was just flat out annoying in her testimony and not only because of her Zsa Zsa Gabor impersonation but for her blatant ignorance of facts and her holier-tnan-thou, spitting-in-the-face-of-newspapers delivery. I thought for a moment she was going to challenge Simon to a duel.

 

[SockPuppet]

Not saying blogs by these people aren't interesting reads, and informative ones on occasion, but the idea of that becoming our primary source of "journalism" chills me to the bone.

It's getting and will continue to become more chilly (chillier?); call it the New Ice Age.

 

[Fredrick]

At one point, sounding like Zsa Zsa Gabor (you old folks explain that to the kids), she says the idea of newspapers getting paid by aggregators for their stuff "is so antiquated." Which causes Simon to fall back in his chair, hands clasped to his bald head, exasperated, because he has made the case, brilliantly if I may so, that news has value and newspapers won't exist, and don't deserve to exist, if they don't value their own work enough to charge for it, someway, sometime, somehow.

This seems so stupid to me that we could have ever gotten to this point.
"So antiquated," she said.
News has to be free now? Wow.

And BTW, does anybody else see this as Congress kind of doing this as a glorified field trip type deal where they are learning about the mess newspapers are in, but when the day is over will just shake their heads and say to the missus, 'Good, the watchdog business is dead. I always thought newspaper people were weird anyway.'

 

[Kato]

When Kerry asked Huffington how many people THP employed, she said 60 plus freelancers. Sixty! Ask any other major metro if it can survive on 60 staffers, covering what needs to be covered. The model to make money at this doesn't work right now.