First, it was the Cap Times, then the Isthmus, now the Wisconsin State Journal?
In just a few short months, the City of Madison has lost years of experience in its top print news organizations. The Cap Times laid off 24 people and stopped its daily printing instead opting to publish daily on-line, the Isthmus has announced its letting some of its people, including Eisen, go, and now the Wisconsin State Journal is looking for 3 – 5 of their most experienced people to go.
We’re living in interesting times. As newspapers struggle to compete with the changing technology, and people like me increasingly look for their news on-line, we’re watching them make some silly decisions. I fully realize, I’m part of the problem. I advertise on Craigslist and other free internet sources for job openings, I canceled my subscriptions to the papers and don’t pick up a print paper. There’s no revenue coming in from me. It’s not that I don’t value the paper and that I wouldn’t pay for it on-line . . . I just don’t have to.
What concerns me, is newspapers are good at what they do. Sending reporters to get the news. That’s why we call the NEWSpapers. Having their reporters blog and being worried about forums and comments on articles and how many clicks something gets is driving them to make silly decisions about what their priorities are and it makes it increasingly difficult to get any local news. In their quest to keep up with the times, the are forgetting why they have value. I don’t need to be entertained by the newspaper, I want the NEWS!
Bloggers aren’t going to fill the void that reporters fill. They don’t have the same access to people who make the news, they don’t have the time to get the stories that reporters have and they don’t have the respect and relationships that reporters get over time. Also, if they start giving us their opinion instead of the news, their news reporting becomes less credible. If the papers continue to cut back on their reporting staff, and have them busy writing blogs, where will our relatively neutral local news come from? And simply re-writing the police press releases and incident reports doesn’t count for news!
I find myself getting more and more news from the TV stations lately. Which is sad, because they don’t spend the same amount of time (20 seconds?) and you don’t get the same depth of coverage. However, they have actually been better at giving me news than the papers.
What concerns me even more, is not that I can’t get the local news that I want . . . it concerns me that they are a check and balance on government. If the public doesn’t know what the local government is doing . . . well, you fill in the blank . . .
