The End of Newsprint
Decatur Metro | January 14, 2009 | 10:55 amFor someone who will see his little blog pass a half -million page views today, you’d think that a post entitled “The End of Newsprint” would be a ego-stroking report on the death of newspapers and the unstoppable emergence of the much mythologized “citizen journalism”.
But its not.
Reading Michael Hirschorn’s “End Times” article in Jan/Feb’s Atlantic yesterday, which chronicles the building death-knell of the hard-copy edition of The New York Times didn’t send me out into the night, twirling and laughing at my good fortune. Actually, it just left me feeling very unsettled.
Hirschorn’s article documents the well-known descent of the newspaper industry and talks about how the NYT must make drastic changes over the next 5 months or it could default on $400 million in debt. His analysis concludes that the death of newsprint is inevitable…and he’s probably right.
But my own foray into “citizen journalism” hasn’t done much to placate my fears that something substantial isn’t lost when print media goes entirely online. Yes, newspapers have had this coming to them for an awfully long time. In its own attempts of survive, our own AJC still claims that it covers the entire metro-Atlanta area, lulling people into a false sense of security that if news happens in their suburb, the AJC will be there to cover it. But as we’ve seen here in Decatur, cutbacks have made it nearly impossible for our hometown paper to tell even half of the relevant stories the community should know about (Was there a peep out of the AJC regarding the Fellini’s robbery?). The success of THIS site would not be possible without the cut backs at the AJC. My questionably-humorous anecdotes about Decatur politics wouldn’t be able to compete with a paid staff of dedicated full-timers.
If this is where the future is heading, this site is definitely on the right side of the trend. However, I still have a couple real concerns.
First off, where are all these citizen journalists? Yes, I’m aware of a smattering of “hyper-local” blogs and sites nationwide, but Atlanta itself should be full of them if they are the great savior of journalism. For Decatur to have more local news blogs than Midtown/Downtown/Buckhead COMBINED speaks to the discrepancy…to say nothing of all the other Atlanta suburbs and neighborhoods. Perhaps when the AJC finally admits its limitations to the general public, people will recognize the need to mobilize, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
The other aspect of this New York Times piece that really unsettled me was the case made for complete extinction of hard-copy newsprint. Somewhat surprisingly, this blog has inadvertently shown me the real value of getting your news from a hard-copy. Online news is like a drug. A blogger (or reader) is always looking for their next fix. Always looking to get in and move on to the next hyperlink. After running this blog for over a year, I noticed that I was putting myself in a smaller and smaller box, reading only the things in my RSS feed or clicking on habitual bookmarks. Even my forays to NYTimes.com could be described as the symptoms of an addict. Always looking first to the “Most Emailed” list (Thomas Friedman again!?) and then a brief glance over top stories and national news. Even after starting an article, I heard my brain saying to me “Hurry up…hurry up…need to get on to the next thing…what will it be…what will it beeee…”. And God help me if an article was over two pages!
As a result of this deep and personally disturbing addiction, I decided to subscribe to the print edition of the New York Times. Instantaniously, the simple change in medium took my news consumption from hyperactive to meditative. In print form, I read articles slower. I considered them. I consumed things I wouldn’t ever dream of clicking on. I leaned back in my chair.
We may be inevitably moving towards a digital age of journalism, but I must disagree with Mr. Hirschorn that the only thing lost when print moves to media is the loss of a “civilized ritual” of “going out on a Sunday morning for our doorstop edition of The Times”. We will also lose a form of news consumption that requires restraint. Like the good habit of listening until a colleague is done speaking, hard-copy journalism asks only for passive engagement, which can be a lot better than it sounds. Of course you can always turn the page, but that temptation is much more modest compared to the consume-and-respond or partially-consume-and-click mentality found online.
How we consume our media matters. Not just to those that write it, but to consumers too. Sites like Decatur Metro fill a giant void left by the newspaper industry, while simultaneously giving residents a new opportunity to respond and debate the news at their convenience. I strongly believe this is definitely a step forward in the evolution of local news. But the same trend that now favors sites like DM is also killing America’s paper of record. On a day when this site should reach half-million total hits, I’m more conflicted than ever.
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It’s true, Decatur is very fortunate to have several well-written blogs. A friend and I were discussing how it’s strange that we don’t know of a blog (which isn’t the same thing as a blog not existing) that does a really bang-up job covering City Hall.
To think of this phenomena in terms of just blogging is too narrow though. If you do a search for Atlanta on Yahoo Groups or Google Groups, for example, you will be presented with more information about the city and surrounding communities than you could reasonably process. A lot of people are still using email, which might seem backwards to us, but which is more inclusive of people who aren’t all that tech savvy. On the flip side of the coin, thousands of people signed up for Atlantans Together Against Crime & Cutbacks on Facebook before anyone at the AJC even knew it existed.
Thing is, we don’t need newspapers for a lot of the day-to-day minutiae that their business model had largely been predicated on. I find a dozen restaurant reviews on Yelp to be a lot more useful than one review in the Food section of the AJC. Same for movies. And I get better results on Craigslist and eBay for posting classified ads than the AJC could ever dream of giving me.
What we do need them or another equivalent group of professionals for is investigative journalism. People with jobs just don’t have the time to thoroughly examine public records or to work a beat for leads. Problem is, not too many people have found a way to make that pay for itself.
I’m hopeful that the economics will work themselves out relatively soon, but I’d be lying if I told you I know how it will all play out. And until they do, there will be that nagging feeling of uncertainty that you mentioned.
I don’t know. I speak to niche-market papers all the time. Smaller papers like the Atlanta Voice and any of the other papers here in Atlanta and they don’t seem to have any issues at all financially- not issues that the larger media is going through, at least.
Good stuff.
I’ll echo what Rusty said but also add that I think you’re right that as the AJC dwindles more and more hyperlocals will pop up. It’s still early in the game and these things have a way of mushrooming.
But I’ve also experienced what you talk about with a seeming narrowing of viewpoint. Two years ago, I consciously chose to ratchet my place down to just Georgia politics. Soon I found myself clicking only on my “Georgia:” folder and sometimes just hitting mark all read on the rest.
But here’s the thing I’ve been noodling over lately. Are we really narrowing our focus or is it now we are receiving from so many channels? In other words, maybe we have so many avenues now it just seems like we are narrowing when we choose a particular one. More on that at another time. It’s still an incomplete thought.
And I’m proud to live in Dekalb where local blogs are so vibrant. In fact I declare us the unofficial home of the hyperlocal.
Griftdrift says “Are we really narrowing our focus or is it now we are receiving from so many channels? In other words, maybe we have so many avenues now it just seems like we are narrowing when we choose a particular one. ”
Great insight. In some respects, probably completely true. Lets face it, we are overwhelmed by information and our society as well as our brains are really grappling with a rapid evolutionary social issue that most of society doesn’t seem to have acknowledged yet or is just starting to realize/understand. I really think its causing some people to “lose it” (for lack of a better phrase at the moment) and why we are seeing some elements of extreme fundamentalism start to rise up again. It gives people a sense of certainty. I mean…how can anyone ascertain what information is accurate anymore. Sure we rely on TV news and newspapers and there are probably still a couple of good ones but they are more rare. Newspapers are floundering and cutting investigative journalism and reporting more entertainment type trash. Sure, its possible to validate accuracy, but there is so much power to skew information these days its causing some inevitable social upheaval. I guess I’m more concerned that because of societies feelings of uncertainty there will be a movement to filter the information which is worse than having too much. I mean…who decides what the filters are? I think many people are filtering on their own based on what they are comfortable hearing…not looking at all sides anymore which is wide we have such an extreme social divide in the country. Anyway… I really wish true investigative journalism could come to the fore. But like Rusty says, it comes down to profit. I saw a documentary a couple of years back called “The Corporation” that discussed investigative journalists at FOX trying to do a well researched expose on the public health travesty of the rBGH hormone(the growth hormone given to cows to produce more milk) and because of sponsor (advertising) related issues, FOX yanked it from the journalists. (after a large battle) So much for investigative journalism at that level.
Its a very interesting time to be alive…watching all of this unfold.
What griftdrift and Rick are touching on is the Long Tail phenomenon. It is absolutely transforming our culture – as we all voluntarily explore and create an infinite number of niches, we detach from the larger community and common bonds once held. This is good and bad, but fascinating no matter what.
I highly encourage DecaturMetro, griftdrift, and other local bloggers to read The Long Tail.
Thanks for the well-reasoned responses guys. Rusty and Grift, I know you’ve been mulling this issue for a good while now.
Rusty…in terms of message boards/Google groups and email, these are indeed new and improved ways at communication that can completely usurp the need for minutiae from a newspaper. I would just say that these word of mouth services can’t often verify facts and as such can often become rumor breeding grounds. But you are correct, I shouldn’t limit the discussion to just blogs. It reminds me of the recent article about the decline in new blogs thanks to Facebook.
Grift…your question about the tendency to narrow the fields is a very intriguing one. But when my focus really narrowed, it didn’t feel all that healthy, it felt sort of obsessive. Plus, the inherent connections between local/state/national makes it hard too say you have a good grasp of the issues at any one level without keeping tabs on the others.
E…thanks for The Long Tail recommendation. Its been on my reading list for quite some time. Time to pick it up!
GREAT post, DM.
I think this conversation is not looking at niche-market journalism. Media shift has talked about this at length and there are professional journalists doing some great long-form investigative journalism on national levels at places like pro-publica and for local areas like Voice of San Diego. Then you have various papers for communities like Crossroads, Atlanta Daily World, Atlanta Voice, Atlanta Planet or any of the dozens of weeklies and dailies inside Atlanta communities that tackle issues for specific areas. Media can never die. And professional media won’t either. It will morph, perhaps.
The model that the NYT, AJC and other large regional papers has come and gone. I don’t know that it was ever a healthy model to follow to begin with.
Congratulations on passing a half million hits, Nick!
A note that I came across today related to this topic:
According to one study about online users, highlighted in Nicholas Carr’s, article, ‘Is Google Making Us Stupid’ :
“It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of “reading” are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense.
In Google’s world, the world we enter when we go online, there’s little place for the fuzziness of contemplation. Ambiguity is not an opening for insight but a bug to be fixed…The idea that our minds should operate as high-speed data-processing machines is not only built into the workings of the Internet, it is the network’s reigning business model as well. The faster we surf across the Web—the more links we click and pages we view—the more opportunities Google and other companies gain to collect information about us and to feed us advertisements. Most of the proprietors of the commercial Internet have a financial stake in collecting the crumbs of data we leave behind as we flit from link to link—the more crumbs, the better. The last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. It’s in their economic interest to drive us to distraction.”
A very thoughtful post and comment thread – it is comforting to see your readers talking about the subject of the “new media” … my 2 cents is this: the biggest shift of all is in who is responsible for informing us.
The decomposition of traditional “news” sources is a result of not only technology, but also culture. As we are evermore moving towards of culture based on individualism, we demand evermore personalized services. This is empowering. Unfortunately, it is also an opportunity for each of us to make very uninformed and even bad choices.
I think of the communication revolution as analogous to the transportation revolution. If you’ve been around a few decades like me, you have seen an extraordinary explosion in the available food choices in your local grocer or restaurant due to technological advances in transportation. It is great to have such choices. Can you imagine if the cost model for food distribution and retailing was like that of the web? We’d have specialty markets around every corner. For individuals, the trouble would then be how to efficiently shop.
I think personal or local blogs are like the corner bakery or butcher. Syndication and other web technologies are making it possible for each of us to have our favorite croissant baker, our favorite butcher, and our favorite bottle shop at our finger tips – we don’t have to get all of our brain food at Wal-mart or Kroger.
For me, I like the ability to buy a great diversity of food and, in the same way, I am enjoying the great diversity of information sources web tech has created.
The key will be how the individual evolves, learns to understand and to manage their information technology choices in a responsible way. Will every citizen become a information-savvy and highly civic-minded individual? No. Will those with the motivation and interest to do so find it easier than ever? Absolutely! As the tools get easier and more powerful, there will be more people in the latter group and we’ll all be better off!
Nick: Keep blogging to 1 million and beyond for your neighbors sake!
The corner bakery is a fantastic analogy. I’m going to have to steal it!
All yours – You can’t steal what is given away :). I hope this thread helps Nick resolve any conflicted feelings he has about blogging. We all need the Nicks of the world to continue with clear consciences!
Cheers Kim…thanks for the kind words. But it’s not like I feel guilty about gaining viewers while the big guys can’t stay solvent, but the trend itself is disconcerting since (as Rusty said) any sort of “investigative journalism” hasn’t proven profitable in an online format. And I am not completely satisfied that word-of-mouth is a good substitute for a well-researched meeting report.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ratcliffe/?p=381
GREAT article Dominick! Really interesting ideas about how to support local journalism. The idea of people “subscribing” to a local news website for $12 a year to support a single journalist is an interesting one. Though that means you’d need to convince thousands of people to donate to make it work.
I wonder if people would actually do that after getting news online for “free” for so long. I guess public radio is a good example of an institution that still subsists on donations thanks to a loyal audience.
I also wonder how “local” you would have to be to make this model work. Could Decatur support a full-time blogger/journalist using this method? Or would the journalist have to cover all of metro-Atlanta? The limitation becomes how much can a single person cover? I’ve always believed that Decatur is a manageable for one person…but nothing bigger. Expand to cover all of Atlanta and tons of stuff begins to fall through the cracks. Cover a very specific topic, like say Atlanta politics, and you become too focused.
DM, Though I’m unable to send you $12 at this time, I am willing to pick up the next round in exchange for this daily Decatur coverage.
Bottoms up.
Nick: I don’t think investigative journalism is going to disappear as collateral damage of the communications revolution. There has never been an enormous amount of this type of journalism to begin with – I contend that the broadening of media outlets has not made anyone who was informed less so.
On the contrary, I think those that always were informed are more informed than ever and that a lot of new people have gained superficial knowledge thanks to the new media. Call me idealistic but this is what I see – more people know more, more quickly, about more items than ever before. The group that always enjoyed in-depth Network features, The Economist, Frontline or 60 Minutes reporting is not worse off IMHO.
As for local journalism, I do not believe large media companies could hire enough people to cover what folks want to know. Even just in Decatur there is more going on than 1 person or 1 outlet can possibly track and report. What you do, Nick, is leverage what you know to the benefit of your neighbors. In essence, you are like an information concierge for Decatur and provide an invaluable service via your information brokering.
As for $$$, I’m a working guy and can’t spare the cash at the moment but here’s a boomerang plug for you. Encourage your readers to go vote for your material that is cross-posted at my site and you’ll likely win quarterly or annual awards at our community site. The awards are be based on reader contributions so there is no $$$ limit. This is a trial for 2009 and I hope the model works for folks because it makes sense to me and rewards those that do the work of information “concierge.” I’m trying to harness the power of community by letting folks “drive” the awards.
I believe these types of syndication networks are the right way to gather and redistribute the tsunami of information available. We ALL have to help each other out to manage it efficiently – some by submitting content, others by rating it, and hopefully others by pitching in a buck or two.
Scott, I’m not sure an alcohol for news swap is in the best interest of our readers. DM posts would end up looking like this on a daily basis…
“I sawed a cat in a garbage can and then i walked into adare park and went down the slide. police showed up and said i couldnot slide at 4am but i ran away and fell asleep under the mary gay house.”
Kim, thanks for the insights. I’ll follow up later when I have a bit more time!
… more pressure on traditional content/media may broaden the gap between what “professional journalism” offers via the web vs. “the citizen journalists:”
http://www.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/05/07/murdoch.web.content/index.html