The history of the newspaper stretches back to the turn of the 17th century, but now Americans are watching that proud tradition disintegrate. Across America, newspapers large and small, independent and corporate, liberal and conservative are collapsing at an alarming rate.
The results have been rampant consolidation, the laying off of entire wings of reporters and other staff, and the complete elimination of a print edition, as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has done.
The so-called “death of print,” or, more specifically, the “death of newspapers,” has become a topic de rigueur among journalists, intellectuals and bloggers. The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz, in a piece fittingly titled “The Death of Print,” wrote in the spring of this year that “the online cacophony that would follow the demise of newspapers would be fast, furious and fun, insightful and opinionated.”
But, he worries, who would pay for the bureaus, the reporters, the concrete and significant expenses of the journalistic craft?
Rather than bemoan the newspaper’s demise, we must instead proactively consider the possibilities for its replacement. If we are to maintain our democratic state in any sort of working form, it will be necessary to maintain some form of journalism.
I needn’t rehash here all the reasons why it would be a disaster for our nation if newspapers continued to crumble without a similar institution to take up their charge; these reasons have already been fully enumerated elsewhere by greater experts than me. Our generation faces a fork in the road: continue down the path of the traditional newspaper, which has devolved into a crass enterprise in which advertising revenue dictates content, or forge a new path governed by public interest, mutual cooperation, citizen participation and small-“d” democracy.
Let me emphasize at the outset that in no way do I mean to suggest that profit is an inherently bad thing — it is obvious that our economy could not rightly function without the incentive of profit — but so long as journalistic decisions are in the hands of corporate lions whose only language is the dollar sign, journalism, and thus democracy, will suffer.
Fortunately for those of us engaged in the exercise of dreaming up the future face of journalism, the path before us has already been tread. Writer Clay Shirky has considered the situation at great length. “No one experiment,” Shirky writes on his blog www.shirky.com, “is going to replace what we are now losing with the demise of news on paper, but over time, the collection of new experiments that do work might give us the journalism we need.”
The point is that there will almost certainly not be an overnight solution to the dire crisis journalism is facing. This much should be abundantly clear. As scary as it may seem, what is required of us is daring and experimentation; we must be willing to jump out of the plane without knowing for sure whether the parachute works.
Perhaps the greatest example so far of a successful and profitable post-newspaper news-gathering and muckraking operation is the popular Web site TalkingPointsMemo.com.
More than a mere blog, TPM, under the leadership of founder Josh Marshall has, over the years, evolved into a massive multimedia operation with a staff of nearly a dozen, complete with a full-time Washington bureau and a daily readership in the millions. It maintains its staff through savvy use of Web ads, giving the site a revenue stream that apparently pays the bills. So, how has Marshall done it?
To begin with, TPM places an emphasis on original, hard reporting. TPM broke the story of the U.S.-attorney–firing scandal during the latter years of the Bush administration, extensively covered congressional Democrats’ efforts to quash the 2005 “overhaul” (read: demolition) of Social Security and have been indefatigable in keeping the mainstream media honest. Part of the secret to the site’s success is that TPM uses a model of community journalism, something old media seems not to have quite figured out yet. This type of journalism, in which the readers take an active role in ensuring that minor details of a story get the attention and exposure they deserve, must be a part of whatever institution takes the place of old media in the years to come. Will TPM serve as a viable model for the future of journalism?
We will have to wait and see. But in the meantime, rather than whine about the natural and inevitable decline and collapse of print media, what if we instead considered the myriad possibilities for the future? The survival of our republic depends on innovation and original thought in journalism, and we are doing a disservice to our country as citizens if we do not engage with this topic. As Helen Thomas said, “Our democracy can endure and prevail only if the American people are informed.”
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Amen, Helen. Now let’s get to work.
Richard Becker is a columnist for the Kentucky Kernel, serving the University of Kentucky in Lexington.
