In his book
Losing the News: The Future of the News That Feeds Democracy, Alex Jones argues that as newspapers begin to fail due to lack of money, we will lose our main source of the news that a democracy needs to function. He is not talking about soft news, but as he calls it: "the core" of news, reports of corruption, wartime reporting, foreign policy, and other important news that informed citizens should know about. While digital media is great and free, only newspapers hire people to do the legwork required to find out these stories. Newspapers employ investigative reporters and journalists to find out the stories we need to know. But nowadays to make the bottom line, newspapers are slashing their investigative news corps, which is bad news for our democracy.
I think that he is correct and we should try to find a way to find a business model which ensures the survival of our newspapers. Check this story out about the environmental risks of natural gas drilling :
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general .
Only a newspaper with investigative reporters who have the resources to pursue a story (in this case, going to the EPA and finding those reports) would be able to give the public a story like this. IF newspapers fold, then we all lose in the process.
I don't think we would ever actually let newspapers fold. i think either the govt. or corporations would step in last minute. i think as the situation becomes more critical more online sites will seek to put their news behind an "iron" wall- where you are required to pay for access. i also think that closing some newspapers will lead to the survivors to work harder, get out better stories. i think by closing down (excuse me) pathetic newspapers that the authentic papers like the NYTimes and the Wash. post or WSJ will up their quality.
ReplyDeletethe little papers dont have money to do really big stories anyways.