I don’t mean to discredit the online media community. And I honestly don’t come from that perspective.

But there is so much rampant criticism from the progressives online. And journalists have been getting that crap for years from the right.

And ultimately, there is value in objectivity.

Yeah, there have been mistakes, primarily they come from front office deals where editors are squirrelly about pissing off the advertising base. Yes, there are some issues where a reporters bias affects their perspective on what the “news is.”

But we should really thinking about perfecting the craft as opposed to tearing it down and replacing it.

I don’t mean to discredit the online media community. And I honestly don’t come from that perspective.

But there is so much rampant criticism from the progressives online. And journalists have been getting that crap for years from the right.

And ultimately, there is value in objectivity.

Yeah, there have been mistakes, primarily they come from front office deals where editors are squirrelly about pissing off the advertising base. Yes, there are some issues where a reporters bias affects their perspective on what the “news is.”

But we should really thinking about perfecting the craft as opposed to tearing it down and replacing it.

Yes, OW is referencing to newspapers all over the place the Dick Cheney piece is taken right out of a print publication. The Mitt Romney piece is right out of the Washington Post. Another piece is from the New York Times.

This thread is exactly why we need newspapers. Online is all about a bunch of people trying to win arguments.

I do really like O Willis’ column. I read it every day. He’s funny. I like media matters in general. They serve a valid function, but traditional media (aka the newspaper industry) is what they are being watchdogs over.

Newspapers, of course, obviously can’t continue to survive in just print form anymore. But my point to you is there is no other model. You seem to live in this fantasy world where there is. It’s just not the case.

Online “new media” companies are not generating enough money to employ enough people to actually create the content they are critiquing.

And so far, they don’t seem to think it is necessary to even try. Just do me a favor, peruse the “net” media and tell me if you do not discover an infinite number of political takes all based on the same dozen or so news stories. Then look closely and tell me if those stories did not originate in print. This is a fact, it’s not an opinion.

New media, at this point in its short lifespan, is still based on pillaging through the news as opposed to creating it.

I am not trying to rally against technology or new media. It’s just that the business model they have, and actually the only one they can afford, is about high impact and low overhead. They employ a handful of people to peruse through news that is already out there, synthesize it, dissect it, critique it, and post it on their various sites. Sometimes they take the extra step of disproving it. That is the beauty of the net. You can fill up a lot of space that way with very limited resources.

The newspaper business model is not like that. It just takes a lot longer for a reporter to actually write the stories. You have to research, interview people, work with photographers, file Freedom of Information Acts, pore over boring legal documents, analyze quarterly earnings reports, get out of the office, develop sources, establish relationships with potential sources. The actual writing of the story is the least time consuming of it all. But that too still takes times. Good investigative pieces can take a month or several months.

So the business model that exist today for newspapers can’t simply adapt itself to an online form. Not unless the advertising rates, they have in print also adapt. And the advertisers are not doing that. They pay a fraction of the rate online that they do in print. And even still most of the “new media” companies are being underwritten by foundations, donors. For most new media companies, the advertisers simply are not there. As relatively cheap as it is for them to do what they do, they are still struggling financially.

It’s like News Reference said, take Talking Points Memo example, which is one of the very rare cases of online journalism. TPM only hires a handful of people. And I am pretty sure the majority of their operating cost are based on foundations of some sort. It is certainly not based on advertising.

Politico is the closes thing when it comes to reconfiguring the basic newspaper model online. They employ a good number of reporters. They actually break news stories. They are also ocjective. But they exist in a vacuum. No one else either has the desire or resources to try and do the same.

If you look at Daily KOs, once again it’s critiquing the news. If you look at Huffington Post, once again it’s critique

As far as the Daily Planet goes, I was only there six months and it was seven years ago. I have worked at the Associated Press, the New York Times Regional Newspaper/ Sarasota Herald Tribune and the Oklahoman. I left the Oklahoman to take a “new media” job because I was trying to outrun the evisceration of the industry. I don’t have anything against “net” based media outlets, I am just saying it is not the same, it’s not even close. And I know that in the end, it will be regular folks who will pay the price. Power unchecked is a bitch.

I don’t disagree with any of that.

Well, the internet and Boston being a two-newspaper town, with a serious rival in the Boston Herald.

I’d describe many newspapers’ current state a result of long-term reckless disregard for their own health, bordering on suicidal. My instinct would be to agree to help them — under some very strict conditions that would guarantee some reform that might win back readers (and, more importantly, buyers.)

But that instinct would be wrong. As strong as the wall between church and state should be, so should that be between the press and the state. As reprehensible as I find the Globe (and its owner, the New York Times) to be, I don’t want them to become subject to the same kind of control that the federal government is exerting over the banks and the carmakers.

If that means that some (or even a lot) of our bigger papers go under, so be it. I don’t support mandatory seat belt laws, mandatory motorcycle helmet laws (for adults, in both cases — children are a different story), and I don’t support bailouts for newspapers. If someone wants to be so damned stupid as to recklessly kill themselves, it’s nobody’s business to get in their way. Let them do the gene pool a favor.

J.

Yeah. It’s called investors taking an interest in how the companies they own are run. Now we can debate whether the gov’t should have invested in the companies or not. But now that they have, to argue that they shouldn’t exert any control doesn’t make sense to me.

Jay Tea: Is there anyone here — from either side of the ideological fence — who wants to see the government exercising the same kind of power over the press?

I don’t think so. I’ve seen d.walker and News Rambler say that investigative journalism is important (and I don’t think anyone disagrees with that part) and that papers will continue to be the only viable source for investigative journalism (which is the disputed part). But gov’t run newspapers nobody seems to be in favor of.

So how do you save failing papers (assuming you’re in favor of that) if the gov’t doesn’t get to bail them out?

(And I’m sure he’d even agree with that last sentiment, phrased exactly the same way, about me.)

And now, having acknowledged that reasonable and responsible truth, let’s return to the meaningless hurling of insults and changing of subjects that passes for debate here most of the time.

*sigh*

Please show me just one example where OW provided a link to a physical piece of paper.

Seriously, am I misunderstanding something about your position here? I’d thought you were arguing for the preservation of ink-on-paper newspapers. That when you use the term “newspaper” you mean the physical paper products that you can hold in you hands. Are you actually instead meaning something broader than that? The newspaper companies as a whole?

Becuase I don’t think anyone is saying that the Daily Planet or any “”newspaper” should die as a business or company. Only that continuing to produce their product as printed broadsheets sold on street corners by hollering newsboys is something that shouldn’t be artificially propped up. If they can find a business model that works as the technology and audience shifts, then great. I believe that will be a heavier online presence and less paper.

Do you honestly think that the newspapers will survive in any meaningful way under government control? Because that’s what government “assistance” is translating into.

No, better to let them die cleanly, with at least a pretense of integrity and independence, than to live on as house organs of whatever party happens to be in power.

J.

To the contrary, up until a few years ago I was of the belief that the internet would actually provide a profitable avenue for good investigative journalism.

But that belief isn’t standing up to reality.

The reality is that the internet is NOT providing a funding mechanism which supports investigative journalism.

The fact is that news papers are still producing the vast majority of investigative journalism.

The fact is that the internet is NOT picking up the slack and is in fact the principle change in technology that is eliminating the funding mechanism (ads and subscription fees) that produces the bulk of investigative journalism.

If the internet was capable of providing a funding mechanism for a comparable amount of the good investigative journalism print publications are, even in their weakened state, still producing, I would be (relatively) indifferent to the demise of print publications.

But the facts are that the “news paper,” and print journalism, as anemic as it is, still pays for the vast bulk of investigative journalism.

My concern is with retaining vibrant investigative journalism. News papers fund investigative journalism. The internet doe NOT, overall, fund investigative journalism.

“d. walker” is absolutely correct: “you cannot make the argument that new media, as it stands now, will replace journalism. It’s just not true.”

“Sean D. Martin” : “The business model of newspapers is not based on reporting. It is based on selling advertising space.”

And the larger point is that the online world doesn’t have the advertising model to support investigative journalism whereas the business model of news papers did (and to a large degree still does).

Those that are dismissive of news papers either fail to recognize, or chose not to admit, that there is NO online replacement to the current level of investigative journalism done by news papers. None.

Huffingtonpost? Love her but she’s a leach and without traditional news stories to link to she would be nowhere. Her model doesn’t support even the tiniest fraction of ‘journalists’ that the traditional news papers she’s leaching off of do.

TPM? Love him but he’s an advocate journalist, not a straight reporter. And he has, what, 4, 5 journalists working for him? Again, he largely relies on the net to link to the news paper stories and then comment on them. He aggregates and synthesizes that larger net of news paper written factual information in brilliant ways, but without that larger net of news paper articles he wouldn’t be where he is today.

Where are the other examples? They are, as has been said, few and far between, and largely they are national in scale and are dwarfed by the loss of local news papers that have been doing the traditional on the ground reporting since, literally, the ‘press’ was invented.

In the real world, the vast bulk of investigative journalism still comes from the quickly diminishing news papers. In some fantasy future there might be some replacement.

When ‘the left’ starts talking about some fantasy future they are no longer part of the reality based community.

In the real world, investigative journalism comes principally from news papers and print publications, not from radio, not from tv, and not from the net.

But since we’re talking about some fantasy future, here’s a prediction: when news papers are gone there will be decades where all of the journalism we took for granted just won’t exist.

And the next time some extremist becomes President there won’t be investigative journalists backed by respected institutions who will be in place to report on the secret prisons and the torture and lawless surveillance and the manufactured intelligence.

In that dark fantasy future, the end of news papers will mean the end of the Republic.

And all because enough people were convinced that the news papers, which fund the vast majority of investigative journalism, were comparable to buggy whips.

When journalist are laid off, they often move to other jobs. Some have gone to PR. Some have gone into being political flaks. Some have gone into teaching. Some have gone back to school. And some have just gone to the unemployment line.

Look O Willis, I like your blog. You really are clever. But if you think newspapers are so irrelevant, why don’t you try to maintain this blog without linking to them?

In my opinion, the entire industry should stop feeding the beast. Industry-wide, it should go to a fee-based system for online content. It will dry up the well of free information pretty quickly and maybe then we will see who is redundant.

Is there anyone here — from either side of the ideological fence — who wants to see the government exercising the same kind of power over the press?

It should say something when Oliver and I stand in lockstep on an issue. I even agree with his basic premise — the press has failed utterly at its fundamental job, and is grossly biased. It’s just that we hold mirror opinions on which way that bias tilts. (I’m correct, of course, and he’s a delusional, hyperpartisan hack, but that’s not overly germane here.)

(And I’m sure he’d even agree with that last sentiment, phrased exactly the same way, about me.)

J.

No I don’t. Which I’ve tried to make clear but folks seem to keep missing.

You are arguing that having responsible journalists is essential for a democratic republic. (I don’t think that phrasing is a misstatement of your position.) And I agree with that.

But you and d.walker go further than that to state that without newspapers, without specifically ink on paper, that journalists will go the way of the dodo bird. And I don’t think that cases can be made.

Technology marches on (town crier to newspapers to TV news to internet sites, with several other changes along the way) and investigative reporting has yet to die.

How many hundreds of news paper paid investigative reporter jobs are lost for every one commercially viable online journalist?
I don’t know, how many? How many movie, tv, and theater reviewers have been made redundant?

Investigative journalism has been a principle function of news papers for hundred of years.

The internet is not replacing that function even while it is bleeding the principle funding mechanism of investigative journalism (ads in news papers).

How many hundreds of news paper paid investigative reporter jobs are lost for every one commercially viable online journalist?

Seriously.

Where I see a profession crucial to the future of the democratic republic, you see pointless buggy whips.

The firings of US Attorneys in different states was REPORTED BY LOCAL NEWSPAPERS.

Without those local newspapers doing on the ground, local reporting (paid for by selling news papers), the online community wouldn’t have had a story to push.

PERIOD.

That’s not to diminish Talkinpointsmem’s online journalist Joshua Marshall’s efforts in piecing together THOSE LOCAL NEWS PAPER STORIES.

But without THOSE LOCAL NEWS PAPER STORIES written by local news paper journalists, Mr. Marshall wouldn’t have been able to put all the pieces together. Marshall’s synthesis (aggregation) relied entirely on news paper paid journalists.

And if no one gets paid then they’re selling buggy whips and it’s an industry that deserves to die. To prop it up so that by God we pay people to make sure they can shove this information at an audience that doesn’t want to receive it is ridiculous.

If people want the service being provided they will pay for it. If they don’t pay for it then they don’t want it.

The revenue model is based on advertisements.

But the business model, the product they are selling to advertisers, is based on reporting.

You can make the argument that newspapers have not made smart business decisions. You can make the argument that the revenue model does not work because it relies so much on the corporations that buy the ads. But you cannot make the argument that new media, as it stands now, will replace journalism. It’s just not true. Information, as they say, wants to be free. But if no one gets paid no one does the real work.

There are a handful of online outlets that already realize this void and are attempting to take advantage of it, by filling it. The huffingtonpost comes to mind. They are launching an investigative journalism division that is bankrolled, I think, as a nonprofit. Check out huffpostfund. But they are few and far between. The vast majority of what is being done online is either opinion or the re-packaging of news reports that originated in print. A few reporters here and there cannot replace thousands. And they are not, just check out your local newspaper. How thin has it gotten in the last few years? Do you think it is being adequately replaced by unbiased, local news web sites?

Rarely, if ever, are things “as simple as that”. I’ve found more often than not that’s an excuse tacked on to the end on a weakly supported argument in place of finding support.

The business model of newspapers is not based on reporting. It is based on selling advertising space. Of getting eyeballs on your pages so the advertisers are willing to pay for ads. (Subscriptions account for only around 25% of revenue.)

And if those eyeballs are going online for their information then that business model is going to have to adjust or the business will fail. As it should.

The utter disappearance of newspapers, should it come to that, doesn’t result in the utter disappearance of reporting and more than the utter disappearance of pamphlets resulted in the end of political commentary.

I think you are confusing posting a news story with reporting a story.