David Moats and the decline of newspapers

Do your job (3.00 / 1)

Mr Moats:

You lost us when you moved from focusing on advertising over reporting.  I read a paper for the NEWS, and if I read news, I buy papers.  IF I buy papers, you can sell advertising.  

Reporting is not just getting the quote of the day from someone with an agenda, it is looking farther into the quote...  your reporters arent doing that anymore...

Get back into the news reporting business...  If you reveal it they will read it...

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by: hoopmeister @ Thu Apr 02, 2009 at 08:11:59 AM CDT

Evolve and re-invent (0.00 / 0)

David Moats could just as easily have pointed out the success of TPM Media and many other sites as make the crack about blogomaniac.It strikes me as remark by someone unfamiliar with blogs as a whole .I wonder what news blogs he may frequent? Just as Detroit built yet failed to understand or promote the electric /fuel efficient car when it might have smoothed the way to the future for the auto industry the newspaper industry is mostly failing to seize the moment for its online possibilities .All this on top of the financial troubles(some self-inflicted on the industry by owners) must make for a depressing environment .The Times Argus and the Rutland Herald actually have set up a presentable blog effort :Vermont View ,yet I think fail to headline the feature adequately on either online site .Perhaps reporters are really put off by the immediate possibility of criticism from a loud and chaotic source or see blogs as another job rather than part of the whole reporting process.The reporter's world must have been a comfortable clubby atmosphere and now barbarians are at the gate .

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by: BP @ Thu Apr 02, 2009 at 09:34:37 AM CDT

I heard that editorial (0.00 / 0)

I was impressed by the mendacity and ignorance of it, but amused that all his editorials are available on VPR's website :)

One of his laments was that people would miss stories because they'd say things like "did you read about..." and someone would respond "Oh, I don't read that blog."

Like this doesn't happen with newspapers?  I mean, seriously, does he think the Rutland Herald or the Brattleboro Reformer have larger reader bases than Crooks and Liars or Daily Kos?

juliewaters.com

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by: JulieWaters @ Thu Apr 02, 2009 at 16:07:59 PM CDT

Saving newspapers:The Musical (0.00 / 0)

Had to giggle ."Land of digital ubiquity where you can get the new for free"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

 

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by: BP @ Thu Apr 02, 2009 at 16:58:38 PM CDT

Papers dying (0.00 / 0)

Thanks for the article odum.  There have been many others out there about the decline of the once-vaunted newspaper industry.  My verdict is still out on this, but, like the autos, the old ways are a thing for historians to study.  Newspapers can no longer work as they have in the past, especially when there is no ad revenue.  It is digital or die, I guess.  I am not sure whether blogs have been all or partly responsible, but blogs are definitely much more fun, and often more informative, than the traditional newspapers.  It might not be long before we are bailing them out too.  

When you wake up each morning look around you.  It might be the last time you get to do it.  

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by: Watercloset @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 01:59:32 AM CDT

Nostalgia is not the answer....... (0.00 / 0)

Moats seems to mourn the loss of a strong sense of community based, among other things, on shared sources of information.  Those days have been gone since the emergence of cable news, and are not likely to return.  Allowing nostalgia to guide a suicidal business plan in which readership drops, advertisers follow readers, and then to cut costs corporate managers spend less on journalism will not save the enterprise.  For the most part newspapers have failed at their primary mission - holding governments accountable.  It should come as no surprise that their compromised product is rejected by consumers.  Enter citizen journalists who are anxious and able to hold politicians accountable.  While on-line news sources are many and varied in quality and point of view, taken as a whole they are becoming effective in filling the role of an independent free press.   I don't have the answer to the plight of newspapers, but I know it won't be found by yearning for the good old days.    

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by: momenta @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 07:33:45 AM CDT

A eulogy? (0.00 / 0)

I felt he was mourning a craft that may or may not be going away, if not already gone.

The restrictions placed on newspaper writers are this: Craft a story that boils it all down to the essentials, is evenhanded, detailed, readable and most of all interesting and simple enough so a fifth-grader could read and understand it. Do all that on deadline and it has to fit in the space allotted. These restrictions led to some brilliant writing because journalists have to make choices about their words. Journalists spend years perfecting that craft, making those choices.

The same rules do not apply to blogging, and so the writing craft that was specific to print journalism is dying. A veteran journalist has a right to mourn that, does he not?

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by: robmitch802 @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 20:48:38 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

perhaps (4.00 / 1)

but "evenhanded" has come to mean quoting two sources without challenging the veracity of the statements

the Gov. issues a press release and reporters quote it even though it contains misleading (sometimes erroneous) information; then reporters find a suitable opponent and quote him/her

moreover, if a top official repeats the same misleading sound bite often enough (enabled by the media) it becomes received wisdom and many in the general public accept it as fact; this is a disservice and warps the public discourse

for example: VT is the highest taxed state in America; single payer health care will require huge tax increases; state taxes drive business and young people out of state; and so on

a "story" is more than what the opponents attempt to frame and spin; there are facts at the heart of it; media should seek to educate not just cut and paste press releases

as for presenting information "simple enough so a fifth-grader" can read it, that's a pretty low bar; how are we to raise the level of the discourse if we settle for that?

so while I agree that the writing craft may be dying, there are other problems that require attention

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by: Doug Hoffer @ Sat Apr 04, 2009 at 07:40:48 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Failure to be "evenhanded" (0.00 / 0)

The problem with today's corporate media, particularly given how conservative the media is, is that journalists and infotainment personalities conflate objectivity with neutrality.  The two are rarely the same and frequently at odds.

In a previous post I reiterated an example from the Bush days of media intimidation that lays out the difference between neutrality and objectivity:

If the media reports on a story objectively and it does damage to the Republicans, that is not a bias. That is a sad day for the Republican Party. The truth hurts. Of course, the same is true of the Democratic Party.

So, if people weren't rescued for five days in New Orleans, it is not biased to report the Bush administration didn't show up. They didn't. It would be folly to report that some say the administration did a terrific job in rescuing people in an effort to appear neutral. . .

It is not biased to say that Iraq is undergoing tremendous civil strife. It is not biased to say the administration claimed the Iraqis would throw roses at our feet. . . .  Though reporting these facts might not be neutral to the administration, it certainly is objective.

Conservatives often complain that liberals want equality of results rather than equality of opportunity in social programs. They say . . . the best we can do is equality of opportunity for everyone in society [but] when it comes to the press, they don't want equality of opportunity, they want equality of results. They don't want fair coverage, they want coverage which shows two equal sides no matter what actually happened.

Being even-handed is fine although it does not serve any purpose in its own right.  What matters, and what should matter to journalists, is the art of being objective. Being objective is what news consumers seek and it is what so many in the media fear and shy from almost reflexively.  

Surrendering facts to the subject of the story rather than reporting the facts may be neutral, but it does not give a reader an objective news story.  Presenting facts objectively and then giving a fair chance to the subject of the story to air their perspective of the facts is just being fair.

sláinte,
cl

-- Religion is like sodomy: both can be harmless when practiced between consenting adults but neither should be imposed upon children.

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by: Caoimhin Laochdha @ Sat Apr 04, 2009 at 12:47:56 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Dont think you can characterize it as a eulogy.... (0.00 / 0)

...given that he said this:

The paper where I work is doing okay. But I don't think newspapers are going away.

undercaffeinated

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by: odum @ Sat Apr 04, 2009 at 08:33:24 AM CDT

[ Parent ]