What happens when newspaper resources shrink?

[TopOfTheCircle]

You've already started seeing shoddy, sloppy reporting -- or even the absence of reporting -- on some topics.

These clips regarding the Rosenblat hoax (let the first run until the end, and let the Campbell Brown story run afterwards) are damning. The interviewee in second video says, in essence, "All someone had to do was make a few phone calls." Nobody checked the veracity of the story -- except The New Republic.

Without a vigilant media, all manner of bad things can happen outside of public notice. God forbid TMZ becomes a respected news source one day ...

 

[lone star scribe]

The problem is, at lot of our reporting has become "so and so has reported ... "

And yes, it's a direct result of cutbacks in the media: print, broadcast, even online. We don't have the time or resources to do our own reporting, so we report what's already been reported so we're not left out of the mix.

 

[Stitch]

Print is dead in major markets because either we don't care enough to put out the best possible product or society just doesn't care.

Part of the first problem is that while reporters are working, editors aren't doing their jobs by making sure the facts are correct.

I think that a lot of people just don't care about the newspaper anymore either. Yeah, they'll ***** and moan about newspapers not getting this story right, but they won't pick up a copy of today's paper or Sunday's paper for the stuff we get right. While the mistakes we make as reporters are small in most cases, people focus on those errors and refuse to read us because of them.

 

[VJ]

Part of the first problem is that while reporters are working, editors aren't doing their jobs by making sure the facts are correct.

LOL WUT?

Pretty sure unless mistakes are being edited into a story, factual errors in a story are the responsibility of both the reporter and the editor.

 

[txsportsscribe]

Part of the first problem is that while reporters are working, editors aren't doing their jobs by making sure the facts are correct.

um, shouldn't the reporter make sure facts are correct before it even gets to an editor?

 

[DanOregon]

I think we'll see more and more bypassing of the press as more media enterprises decide to go directly to the consumer.
It used to be that the press was needed to get your message/product/project out to the public. But with newspapers losing their market share, and no longer having independent critics or other resources to do anything than locate someone to provide a counter-argument, we'll see more of this. And it really won't matter to the public. Opinion has become "truth" - lying has become a "different interpretation of the facts."

 

[Stitch]

Part of the first problem is that while reporters are working, editors aren't doing their jobs by making sure the facts are correct.

um, shouldn't the reporter make sure facts are correct before it even gets to an editor?

Yes, but were reporters assigned to uncover a hoax? If you're writing several stories a week, investigative pieces aren't going to be part of the work week.