“Newspapers are dying.” “Find a new career.” “Journalism is going to the masses.” All phrases that as a graduating senior I hear every day. I hear them from not only friends and family, but also professors. The lackluster attitude of where the journalism industry is going is more prevalent than the more upbeat opinions of Johnson and Smith—that is for sure!
So where do we stand now as graduating seniors, “jumping” at the chance to get into the working world? Well, I am standing somewhere in a couple of newsrooms, interviewing anyone and everyone about their opinions on the direction of journalism. Last week I talked with the Kristi Ritter, editor of Longmont Times-Call Special Sections, (http://www.timescall.com/magazines.asp) about what she thought the direction of small local newspapers should be. Her opinions were similar to Johnson’s, as she said people want to read local content. They don’t want AP generated national news on the front page of their newspaper anymore. They want to know what happened down the street at the neighborhood parade. Ritter thinks if newspapers put more focus on their local sections, which are generated in-house, there will be better reception to newspapers. Does Ritter think the Denver Post is toast? No way, Ritter says she thinks most major cities will keep a large circulation newspaper.
Dan Brogan, editor of 5280 Magazine, (http://5280.com/), chatted about the news industry with me over a couple sandwiches at Dixon’s in Denver. Brogan says there is a good chance that magazines will be safer in this shift in news industries, but newspapers are going to continue to take a heavy hit. His ideas… Why would anyone pick up a newspaper to read national content anymore when they can get all the information they need on the web? He says, what I have thought for years, “There is no such thing as breaking news in a newspaper, when it broke over 24 hours ago on the Web.” Does Brogan think the Post is toast? Yes! Brogan takes the approach of Johnson and Shirky when it comes to hyper-localization. As Johnson points out, there are tons of blogs popping up about the Brooklyn area, and even the New York Times is adding it as content. Brogan thinks if there is any type of printed newspaper in large cities it will be in a hyper-localized form that resembles something like the Cherry Creek News (http://www.thecherrycreeknews.com/), which is a neighborhood publication. The newspapers will be printed by specific neighborhood or area.
As for the digital dilemma, I think there are several pros and cons. The obvious pros are how quickly news can be distributed online, how much content can be found online, etc. I agree with Johnson and Shirky that we are already in a news revolution cycle, and there is really no going back, only going forward. However, I think the reason the newspaper is going kicking and screaming in this direction is for two reasons.
1) The majority of people working in the newspaper industry are traditionalists. They are the type of people who enjoy getting up in the morning and looking over their newspaper with a cup of coffee in hand. They enjoy having Fido fetch it from the sidewalk at 5 a.m. so they have a tangible piece of print in hand.
2) With the invention of citizen journalism, there is the question of job security, as well as accuracy of news. We have been taught from the beginning that many Web sites are not to be trusted, so why should we trust all these “news sites” popping up now. They aren’t real journalists. They don’t have degrees. They are just “joe shmo” with a laptop in a New York City Starbucks.
I agree with the second statement, and I am pretty sure many people in the newspaper consuming audience would also agree. So, what can we do to move with the ages as graduating seniors? Truth be told, I am not entirely sure. But, what I do know, is the first person to figure out how to make online models consistently profitable and accessible daily will be the next prodigy, following William Randolph Hearst of Joe Pulitzer sans the printing press.
No comments:
Post a Comment