Money | 03/14/2009 6:00 am
Technology Kills Newspapers: Now What?
Editor’s Note: Molly Wood is an executive editor and on-camera personality at CNETTV.com. Molly hosts the weekly Buzz Report video blog, a sort of "Daily Show" for tech news, and co-hosts the hilarious "Gadgettes" podcast, which proves that girls can (and should!) be geeks, too.
The news about newspapers has been unavoidable in the past few weeks, with stories on everything from the insane cost of printing and publishing some newspapers to the extremely imminent death of others.
As someone who went from journalism school to a wire service to a website, I can’t help but feel slightly culpable — but I also feel protective of newspapers and the services they can provide to a community and a country. Some would argue, as my colleague Tom Merritt does in this week’s Buzz Report video, that the Internet is merely a delivery mechanism that doesn’t have to fundamentally change the way reporting and writing are carried out.
Sometimes, I think that’s true — there is amazing journalism happening on the Web, here at wowOwow.com, at Salon, at Huffington Post, at CNET, at Perez Hilton (OK, just kidding). On the other hand, blogs are easy to start and even easier to abandon, and the institution of a newsroom can provide air cover for deep digging that isn’t necessarily available at every online publication, as well as the legitimacy that gets you access to the really good sources.
I hope we can see the difference between publishing technology and the intellectual pursuit of journalism as we cast aside our newspapers for netbooks and Kindles
And in other news this week, I hope that a new Apple netbook, should it appear in the near future, be a whole lot better than the new Shuffle they just announced. More on that in the video. Enjoy!
Got thoughts on the death of the newspaper? E-mail me! molly.wood@cbs.com.
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44 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
Good morning, Marjorie C., same here with The Washington Post and The Washington Times. This past election changed the way readers feel about their local newspapers. The newspapers are getting what they deserve for blatant political bias. Many here cancelled The Washington Times.
It’s a good day in America….cherry blossoms are beginning to bloom, robins are singing and our economy is beginning to show very good signs of recovering on its own.
deber: The newspapers are getting what they deserve for blatant political bias.
Good morning, deber. We have a good day shaping up here in New England, too.
About newspapers getting what they deserve, I agree 100%, and will take it one step further to say they need to fail. When money buys a presidency, that can never be good primarily because we never know where the wealth is coming from… could be Saudi Arabia, could be Venezuela, could be anyone with an agenda. I watched the manipulation from the start of Hillary Clinton’s involvement in the primary right through the end. The bias was blatant. It was scary.
News magazines such as Newsweek, Time, U.S.News, etc. are useless also. I’ve had a Time subscription for years, but I toss it aside now and will never renew.
…our economy is beginning to show very good signs of recovering on its own.
I think it could very well be on the good side of recovery although I think the market will dip again, but the dips will be more shallower. Maybe Geithner knew what he was doing by stalling on a plan, perhaps he knew the thing would right itself without intervention… but I don’t want to give him too much credit, after all these guys (Obama, Geithner, etc.) have to justify their raison d’être.
What is a constant nag at reason is the blatant way the democrats crammed eight years of ignored special interest groups into this stimulus package. Not to be redundant, but it was the Obama campaign which was fueled by millions of dollars of contributions by many states and centers of influence who are now sitting back waiting for the payback. These people were promised "something" for their contributions and if we go line by line on the pork we can easily figure out who they are.
The newspapers and magazines you listed are all in trouble. They crossed a line and changed the way reporting is done today. That’s why the award that Katie Couric received is so bogus. Based on the lower standard of journalism that exists today, anyone on the The View panel could’ve received this Cronkite award.
Beau: …this bill was Bush’s stimulus package…
Which bill are we talking about? The TARP was put together under under Bush’s administration. Half of it was spent under his administration, the remainder is left for Obama. The so-called Recovery Bill of $787 Billion was passed in the middle of February 2009 with not a Republican vote. Heavy with earmarks. The Omnibus Budget Bill for $410 Billion was left over from Bush’s administration because he wouldn’t sign it. He vetoed it because it was too costly. Also heavy with earmarks. When will the Dems be satisfied with the payoff they got? They got their earmarks… they’ve got the majority in Congress. They won.
Newspapers rarely crossed any line in their so-called reportage…
Yes they did, throughout the primaries and into the general election. First Hillary was portrayed as a monster for not quitting, and then with McCain we were always reminded of his age, his previous health issues, his inability to use the computer, etc. Then there was his wife… then there was Sarah Palin… that kept the papers all atwitter. Everything her family did was reported on and still is being reported on.
When newspapers become the persuasive talking arm of big money, then newspapers no longer serve a purpose other than to wrap garbage in. People are shocked, and newspapers are feeling it in advertising and copy sales.
Beau, what are you talking about…the first TARP, the stimulus package or the omnibus bill? Yes, the TARP was passed during the Bush administration. The stimulus bill was created and passed entirely in the Obama administration. This bill received no republican votes in the house and only 3 in the senate. The omnibus bill was delayed under after the inauguration because the democrats saw it as an increased chance of passing. Yes, it has pork in it for both parties but it is not by any means Bush’s bill!
I cannot respond to your last sentence because it takes my breath away. Guess you’d have to be a republican to recognize that most newspapers were under the influence.
Molly,
Great points about the importance of the newspaper industry. What so many seem to miss is that newspaper articles for the most part are subject to the journalistic standards that require objectivity however, the editorial pages are open to the opinions of the board which may lean left (NY Times) or right (WSJ).
No paper is perfect but without them this country will be left with a population left to get their information from even more biased sources and typically in sound bites that only scratch the surface of any subject or not at all. Let’s face it, most people have short attention spans or are too lazy to read the news because they think it’s boring. When newspapers responded to the internet and the country’s appetite for pop culture news, that’s when the industry accelerated its downward spiral.
When the media were prevented from reporting on events and denied access to information during the previous administration, a few individual journalists and pundits took it upon themselves to right the boat, as it were, and only managed to give themselves and their papers a black eye. That in turn made it even easier for the Iraq war to continue and the financial meltdown to progress. A weakened free press equals an uninformed citizenry equals a weakened democracy. The industry has to survive and the leaders at the helm must come up with a different business model that not only works but doesn’t gut integrity, responsibility and objectivity from the equation.
Stacey:
"A weakened free press equals an uninformed citizenry equals a weakened democracy."
I couldn’t agree more! And I was so grateful when my small local newspaper decided to tighten their belt by reducing the number of issues per week instead of throwing in the towel. I value balance in my own personal news-gathering. I am pulling for that creative business model you mention in your post. Appreciate your comment.
Sam: …loss of sources of local news is going to have a stupendous negative effect on democracy at the State and local level.
Absolutely. State and local level news seems fairly reported, however national political news has not been… not in the past election cycle. An already struggling print media did itself no good by overwhelmingly favoring one political party over another. They probably swayed a few voters at the expense of angering many other voters.