The predictable fate of the newspaper

While not one often to admit it in mixed company, one of my degrees is in journalism.  When I arrived at university, I told my Jesuit advisor I wanted to write and was thinking about majoring in English.  He tartly observed that English majors study what other people have written; journalism majors write.

Not long ago the Baltimore Sun's editorial board responded to a request from the Boston Globe to opine on the dangers of an assault on free press.  A snippet from that editorial:

"So that’s the goal: to assess, analyze and uncover truth. That’s obviously easier said than done, and our profession’s “truths” do not always reflect the entire public’s — particularly those on the right. While we try to keep our personal feelings out of our work, they can still unintentionally influence the things we cover and the way we cover them. And to many, that’s a failure on our part — one we’ve largely been given a pass on in the past. But not in today’s partisan climate."

Newspaper circulation has dropped below what it was in 1940.  Newspapers had it good for decades, but when technology changed the nature of mass communication, they were slow to adopt as an industry.  One of the reasons is arrogance.  Newspapers largely survived the advent of television news albeit with no small measure of diffidence towards the purportedly less serious medium.  What happened along the way, however, was the vast diminishment of "two paper towns."  As newspapers settled into comfortable local monopolies, they did what monopolists do.  They stopped caring about innovation, customers, and costs.  They lobbied Congress to block electronic classified ads and other competition.  Newspapers attempts to transition to the digital medium was inevitably ham-handed.  When the lower transactional cost of the Internet and low/no cost sites like Craigslist, newspapers simply lumbered along like dinosaurs looking for a tar pit.

Another factor is that newspapers began drifting away from the role of informing into the role of opining.  Pick-and-shovel journalism is hard work, and often tedious.  During my nearly 20 years leading local governments, I've often apologized to reporters covering public meetings with a version of, "I'm sorry you had to sit through that."  And I've been quick to praise lucid, well-written news stories about rambling, difficult-to-follow public discussions.  Great local reporters are rare and incredibly valuable.  On that note, a tip of my hat to Abby Andrews, local government beat reporter for the Times Record who has proven one of the best.

Tip O'Neill is most often given credit for the phrase, "All politics is local."  I think there's an argument to made be that all journalism is local.  Great reporting will always be great reporting.  And there will always be a market for accurate, timely, local information.  What the editors at the Baltimore Sun dismiss is any recent assault on the free press pales in comparison to the damage newspapers have done to themselves.