Blogging vs. print: Some journalists don't get it

A couple of weeks ago I was in Malta at an international conference of technology journalists. Along with other Americans, CNET Executive Editor Tom Merritt and I participated on a panel at the event where we talked about the future of the news business in the age of blogging.

The event was a bit of a culture clash between the Americans and the mostly European and Asian journalists in the audience. To a person, the Americans were pessimistic about the future of print and at least somewhat optimistic about blogging and online journalism.

While none of us predicted that print will disappear any time soon, we all agreed that the future of print publishing is looking pretty murky. But several Europeans who spoke up had a different perspective. More than a few were somewhat bullish about printed newspapers, pointing out that many European cities still have multiple competing papers at a time when American newspapers are facing enormous challenges. The Rocky Mountain News recently shut down, and many other U.S. newspapers teeter on bankruptcy.

Even papers not at imminent risk of folding, including the venerable New York Times, are coping with fewer employees, fewer subscribers and fewer advertisers. Some problems of American papers can be attributed to the current economic climate. But even after the recovery, papers will have major challenges thanks to the ever-rising cost of printing and their ever-shrinking share of ad dollars. Having to compete with Internet Web sites for display advertising dollars is challenging enough, but competing with Craigslist and other free or low-cost sites has taken an enormous toll on the once-lucrative classified advertising business.

The European papers also have their challenges, but the Internet hasn't yet had the same impact as it has in the United States. But it's only a matter of time before my overseas colleagues start to face the realities that U.S. print journalists are dealing with now.

But the news business is not about print, it's about information. It doesn't really matter whether you read the news on paper, on a computer screen, on a mobile phone, on a Kindle, or on an as-yet unavailable technology. However the news is consumed, what's important is that there remains a cadre of talented, honest, and enterprising journalists to dig up facts, dispel myths, and keep powerful people in check.

What's sad about the current state of the newspaper industry is that there are now fewer people to do this important work. Some say that's OK because the bloggers will pick up the slack. But a lone wolf opining on a blog is not the same thing as a newsroom full of reporters and editors with the resources and experience to shine the light of truth on the often murky world of government and business. While there are plenty of blogs focused on national and global issues, there are relatively few dedicated to local topics. Someone has to keep an eye on mayors, city councils, police, school districts, and other local services.

There are still TV and radio stations, of course. But while some stations have excellent reporters and investigative units, it's no secret that many people working in broadcasting rely on newspapers and wire services for ideas and even some of the basic facts that make up their stories. I know that firsthand. Even though I do my own fact-checking, hardly a day goes by that I don't look at Web sites with copy from The Associated Press, Reuters, and several U.S. and overseas newspapers to find topics for my CBS News and KCBS radio segments.

Eventually, our economic troubles will abate. Let's hope that competent news organizations--however they deliver the product--survive and find the resources to flourish. Given our collective hunger for truth, I'm optimistic that will happen. I'm just not sure how.

Podcast: Listen to Tom Merritt and Larry Magid discuss their experience with European journalists.

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[rucknrun]

The Baltimore Sun where I live has turned so liberal I can't read it any more. I think the fact that newspapers no longer provide a partisan opinion on things has something to do with lack of readership.

[MagiMamoru]

Its a darn shame to have to use 3 or more news services to get the full story.

[jumpjetta]

A paper with a liberal position would in all likelihood also be partisan.

[ewsachse]

Fox News has become so conservative that I put a brick through my 60" plasma TV. :-)

Who cares that you are a conservative. Have fun being one of the 20%'ers who yearn for the days of GW.

[vamman]

It is the clash between the guy that sits at his computer desk all day and the guy that sits on a tractor all day. The guy at his desk has every possible bit of news at his finger tips and tools like Google's RSS reader kind of make it impossible not to find out the latest local (if local realizes RSS exists) or global. The guy on his tractor likely isn't surfing the net on his off time so he will likely want to sit down at the end of day with a newspaper to find out the real local gossip.

My biggest issue is that I'm kind of in the middle. When doing field work I start relying on print/radio for news transmissions but when I'm stuck indoors I'm more reliant on digital. The issue I find is local news is totally lost when using digital sources. Local shops need to make local community news reachable at my fingertips

[vikinzer]

Several of the issues you mention here are likely transitional problems. You are correct about the lack of blogs dealing with local issues, but much of that problem is that younger people who are more savy with technology have only been out of college for a short time. If they are doing anything professional with blogging it's probably on a national level. If you look around though you can find local wikis and blogs, and as more and more of these tech savy individuals have kids who are old enough that they are taking notice of their school board's decisions, and enough of them own homes and so take notice of property tax changes, enough of them get high enough in public office, or the board's of their local co-ops you will begin to see more and more local information moving onto the web. Younger individuals just don't take as much notice statistically of local events. I am beginning to learn this as I reach a point in my life where I am more involved in the local

[paul613]

A similar lament was eloquently shared by David Simon, former Baltimore Sun investigative journalist and creator of The Wire, on the April 17, 2009 edition of Bill Moyers' Journal Check it out: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04172009/profile.html

[mjconver]

What the blogosphere needs is the equivalent of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, aka, a "Trust Meter". I span both worlds, I still read a major daily paper cover to cover every morning, then check the online news. I want to know at the top of any blog that I read how much it's trusted by others. Not just links and popularity, but an objective measure of that person's trustiness.

[Jack K1]

I think the reporters (remaining) in America's newsrooms seriously overrate their value.

Take for example, the high level NBC news executive who insisted that the British subway bombings increased American's anxiety about traveling on mass transit the following day, and sent a reporter out to Penn Station to find and interview a fearful passenger. First, that's called "manufacturing" the news. The reporter failed on three different trips. Passengers were more concerned about who would win that night's ball game. Second, truly fearful passengers wouldn't be caught dead in Penn Station (duh). And third, a simple Tweet such as "No way I'm riding the trains today" would have done the job long before the reporter ever found a parking space on his first trip out.

[yaamo21]

Agree 100%. For pure news coverage, I'll take blogs any day.

A good blogger can break news faster and just as accurately as any experienced journalist ('good" being the key word there). The disdain that some mainstream journalists have for bloggers appears to stem from the unbelievable idea that it is, indeed, possible to report news accurately without having a journalism degree. It's not rocket science. The uphill battle for bloggers is that for every good blogger, there are ten bloggers who can barely spell, don't check facts, and simply repurpose existing blog posts. The barrier to entry is far lower than it is for mainstream journalism. But believe it or not, there ARE good bloggers out there who care about reporting the news with integrity.

The whole journalism versus blogging debate is little more than a case of a "we were here first, we paid our dues, and we're an elite dying breed" mentality versus a "we do what you do just as well, but way more quickly and dynamically, and in far greater numbers" attitude.

[rucknrun]

You are right, I should have said non-partisan position.

[codesmith]

I agree that news is news, regardless of how it's delivered. What scares me to death is the lack of serious original reporting, especially investigative reporting, by anyone except the newspapers. Other media all too often just pass on stories that originated elsewhere. And that "elsewhere" is usually a newspaper.
I live in the Detroit area, and if it weren't for our local newspapers, we'd still have Kwame Kilpatrick as mayor and chief hoodlum.

[rapier1]

This is what deeply concerns me as well. While investigative journalism is on the decline in the print world that doens't mean its dead or can easily be replaced by some guy cranking out 250 words in their spare time. Also, its important to point out that The Drudge Report and Huffington post don't actually count as investigative journalism. Reporting rumour and insider gossip as fact is what we want to avoid.

[chlimouj]

Let's face it, American newspapers suffering a slow death in the face of technology because their audience is mostly lazy. They'd rather watch news on TV in little pre-chewed chunks, interspersed with kitsch BS features. For the most part, blogs and microblogs are no better, but they're on-demand and they satisfy the needs of the village idiot.

[QMT]

Yet nobody laments the legions of town criers put out of work when the printing press appeared...

[cerebral_but_dull]

Blogs and on-line news are the equivalent of file-sharing music instead of paying for it. They offer no economic model for original news gathering or investigative reporting.

[Bojerdub]

One of the reasons newspapers are in trouble is because they have failed journalism 101 and have turned to printing their political agenda. I have given up on newspapers and now get me news exclusively on the internet from sites I trust. Bojer

[wangbang]

You guys are so delusional. Your rant about newspapers being slanted--but you seriously think the crappy web sites you go for news are not? You only think they're fair and balance because you AGREE with their positions--that's why you like them in the first place. So go ahead--stick with the blog written by little Jimmy from the mailroom--I'll stick with newspapers.

[jeffyablon]

>>a lone wolf opining on a blog is not the same thing as a newsroom full of reporters and editors with the resources and experience to shine the light of truth on the often murky world of government and business

true. then again, the traditional newsroom ceased to exist years ago in many places. so the argument is . . . specious. good job using big thoughts, though!

Jeff Yablon
President & CEO
<a href="http://answerguy.com">Virtual VIP Business Coaching and Virtual Assistant Services</a>

[ATLHeinrich]

I think not that in Europe the Internet will have such an impact on print. One reason is that people read newspapers during their commute in the train. The other thing is that serious European newspapers are just better, not so much celebrity trash or non-sense about faith healing (as in the ajc recently). I have also the impression that the articles are more detailed and less speculative. Then the other big difference is that even commentators need to stick to the facts and not like e.g. G.F. Will and other who seem to make up stuff sometimes.
Another idea that might be in favor for print in Europe is the lack of sunday work - so way more families stay at home and read the sunday issue (which is usually bigger and more expensive).

For the tabloids counts that they are really cheap and have nude girls upfront - and ridiculous headlines which make them cult. I never saw a tabloid like this in the US. Not that they have news content (except sports part) but the money supports the editors which also have other newspapers.

[judson70]

There are very few "real" news sources in existence. However, there are "real" journalists. You can place one "real" journalist in the wrong news department and credibility is gone, or that same journalist could post his stories in a blog (instead of print, TV, or radio) and be unbiased and credible.
The fact remains that while news is mainly informative, it IS also entertainment. The person that assumes ANY news source is giving a 100% accurate and unbiased depiction of a story is sadly disillusioned. Any news is only as accurate as the information the reporter found. The more time a journalist has to gather information the more potential the news will be accurate. And of course you get to factor in the ?Human Nature? variable. Just think about how difficult it is for YOU to look at a situation in an unbiased fashion? Now imagine you have to write a news article that makes your boss happy, brings in the most readers, viewers, listeners ?? Oh, and you?re on a dead-line.
Anyone knows of an excellent news source (any media) feel free to pass it along. I current read content from many sources including the Networks, major newspapers (and to get a local feel often times a local newspaper from an affected area), Foreign sources (BBC, Al Jazzera (surprisingly unbiased)), the web and various RSS feeds.

[nt007]

Tolerating this "The fact remains that while news is mainly informative, it IS also entertainment." is part of the problem. We should be demanding that "News" is really news and not entertainment.

[fazalmajid]

Most newspapers do not perform anything remotely resembling investigative reporting or hard news, preferring soft stories on fashion to sell papers, or syndicated wire stories. The New York Times is a particularly egregious example - much of the best reporting in 2000-2006 era actually appeared in USA Today, while the NYT was mired in scandal, including falsifying stories or suppressing important ones. An analysis of advertising shows that it's not the newspaper advertising dollars moved online, they simply disappeared altogether, because advertisers discovered like readers most newspaper are literally not worth the paper they are printed on.

Investigative journalism lives, but mostly in specialized publications like Salon.com or The Atlantic

[nt007]

"However the news is consumed, what's important is that there remains a cadre of talented, honest, and enterprising journalists to dig up facts, dispel myths, and keep powerful people in check."

I have yet to see this, no major print media has real news staff anymore. There are clerks that can retype press releases, but thats about it. But you have made the essential point. If organizations go back to basics and report the "news" instead of reprinting press releases they will be survivors.

[MJ2009]

>>>But it's only a matter of time before my overseas colleagues start to face the realities that U.S. print journalists are dealing with now.

Don't be so sure of that. We need to stop assuming that just because something doesn't work in the United States, it doesn't work. Take universal health care, for example...