3 notes
25 January 2010 at 9:30
the progressive | Why We Need to Subsidize Journalism
On the flipside of blaming the Internet for the decline of newspapers is the fantasy that the Internet is somehow replacing the newspaper … So here’s what we have: The shutting down of newspapers, the decline of newspapers, while at the same time with no real replacement by the Web. All the Web is doing is aggregating what little coverage is still done by the newspaper. It’s a disastrous circumstance. If the Web was replacing newspapers, great, wonderful. But that’s not happening. What we’re doing is creating a void. The news we need as citizens is falling into that void.
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What happens when we decrease the number of paid reporters digging out stories, where does our news come from? Again I turn to this Pew study that just came out. What they found out in Baltimore is as you dramatically decrease the number of reporters covering local, state, even federal government at that level, more and more stories — in fact, a disproportionate amount of stories — is generated by government. The mayor says something … the governor says something. And that’s the story.
What you lose is the reporter who goes out and does an investigative story, or just digs on a daily basis, finds a story, breaks it, and then government has to respond. What we’re really seeing is a reversal: Instead of journalists speaking truth to power, challenging power, hopefully pushing it to address important matters, we see government making statements, taking actions, and then journalists responding to it, this is a very, very unhealthy pattern in a democratic society.
+ John Nichols
Wow. This interview nailed the things I find so hard to convey to sometimes.
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