Regarding Gannett's plans to slash 10% of its newspaper workforce, a reader says in a comment: "One of the things we really ought to be talking about is the real problem we're going to have in this country real soon -- a weak news media that does not have the resources to investigate stories and hold governments and corporations accountable."I know we are all (rightly) concerned about paying our bills, but if I were a politician or CEO I'd be jumping for joy right now. Fewer reporters making fewer inquiries into what I do. And since all these lost reporting and editing jobs are not shifting to other media (like the Web), we're headed for the first age in America (in a long time) to feature such a weak media.
"And please don't tell me that Blogger Susie Q is going to do a quality job of reporting, or that crowdsourcing will pick up the slack. I read a bunch of local bloggers who cover the county I live in, and without exception their content is c-r-a-p. It is poorly written, devoid of context, alarmingly incomplete and rife with their own opinions. This is the real tragedy of this mess: An America that's more primed than ever to be without one of its most important institutions."
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Arguing over the social loss because of Gannett's cutbacks hardly works and is actually laughable. Where in the GCI empire was the enterprising story about the excesses of their local bank betting fortunes on credit default swaps? The watchdog role of the press is often cited, but falls apart when you pick up newspapers and read another story about the trend in Crocs, or Paris Hilton's latest troubles.
ReplyDelete5:28 PM
ReplyDeleteRight on. Let mne get local local, though.
Where in the media empire is the story about the media company that's getting an abatement and grants--- when it's outsourcing jobs, paying big dividends and giving its executives fat salaries?
Well, then, I guess it is good that we're killing journalism in the US since by these two accounts, it isn't working anymore anyway.
ReplyDeleteLike I've been saying for years, it will take a crisis, one that only in retrospect will be judged to have been foreseeable by an active press, before the country realizes what it has lost.
ReplyDeleteImagine Watergate happening right now. You'd never know.
Heck, if you cover Obama and write something he doesn't like, you get kicked off his plane (when your news company, not his party, is paying the bill.)
"It is poorly written, devoid of context, alarmingly incomplete and rife with their own opinions."
ReplyDeleteAnd this is different from most newspaper stories how ...?
Yes, 10:57 p.m., like Maureen Dowd and Joe Klein were refused a place on McCain's press plane.
ReplyDeletePlease -- let's keep comments about Gannett, not politics.
In my years after having left newspapers, I've been telling my new colleagues how investigative journalism is the most important part of journalism. As an ex-pat, I've tried to stand up for the estate.
ReplyDeleteBut I can't make that argument anymore. When I hear about reporters digging up dirt on a regular guy who asked an honest question of the media darling presidential candidate, I'm stunned. When the same media attacks a successful woman by inferring she should be home watching the kids or by trivializing her by focusing on her wardrobe, I shake my head.
But when the same media overlook every conceivable criticism of a candidate who is inferior on every one of the issues (such as his allegedly 'fair' tax plan that will grow the economy at 1/2 the rate of his opponent), I've come to learn what 'in the tank' really means.
I've always felt that investigative journalism was it's greatest hope, but when it's wielded with such bias, we all lose -- the journalism industry loses credibility, hastening its own decline and respectibility, forcing more good journalists out of work as mainstream Americans turn to other sources of information. Yes, the industry is getting what it deserves, and it's more tragic now than ever before.