Newspapers across the U.S. are in deep financial distress. In recent weeks we've seen the Rocky Mountain News go out of business, while the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Christian Science Monitor have discontinued their print editions in favor of online-only reporting.
Here in Philadelphia, the city's largest newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, is in bankruptcy, along with its sister publication, the Philadelphia Daily News, for which I was a contributing columnist back when they could afford to pay the freelancers.
Some people are blaming the technological times for the print media's downfall. And that is likely a big factor. With most newspapers offering most, if not all, of their content online for free, we no longer have to pay for our news. Why buy a big hunk of ink and paper when you can read the same news on your computer or your iPhone at no cost?
Nevertheless, some people still like to hold that newspaper in their hands and read it at the table, or in bed, as they enjoy their morning coffee. Those people are now out of luck.
But I believe that technology is not the only thing to blame. I believe that the newspapers themselves share some of the responsibility for their own demise.
Over the past several years, the newspapers have failed to serve as society's watchdogs over the power of government. The so-called Fourth Estate slept while Bush lied us into an unnecessary war of aggression, tortured our prisoners, and systematically dismantled the Constitution. Instead of doing their job, the mainstream media sold their souls to the right-wing propaganda machine.
And so they lost the trust of the public whom they were supposed to serve.
And for that, perhaps they're now getting their just deserts.
Slate has a good article on how many failures are more a product of gross business mismanagement at the topmost levels, rather than a failure of the newspaper itself.
ReplyDeleteMoney quote:
"In other words, the newspaper companies that have failed wholesale were essentially set up to fail by inexperienced managers who believed piling huge amounts of debt on businesses whose revenues were shrinking even when the economy was growing was a shrewd means of value creation."