WAITER, THERE'S A REPORTER IN MY SOUP: Daily journalism is a tough job. As they say, the news, like rust, never stops.
Print is hard enough, but when it comes to TV news reporting- with a much more limited number of words to get the idea through, and the loss of control that comes with producers, editors and anchors all getting a stab at your work- gaffs are not only more common but inevitable.
But Kristine Uyeno's "Action Line" report on KHON's 6 o'clock News yesterday contained more than a simple mistake. It actually made the "scam" being reported upon minor in comparison with the potential for a future re-rip-off of the 89-year-old grandmother who thought she had won the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes.
The story appeared first on Tuesday and told of how the granddaughter couldn't stop her grandmother from sending off $30,000 in order to receive her prize- an all too common scam since legitimate sweepstakes and contests do not require people to send money in order to receive their winnings- until the grandmother saw the story on the news and finally acknowledged that she had been robbed.
We were busily engaged in a Bob Morris novel and so barely paying attention to the followup report on Wednesday night but we just happened to look up for a moment (see the 1:29 mark on-line) to see a "B-roll" shot of a piece of paper with a whole page apparently containing the accounting for all the payments the grandmother had sent out to the thieves.
And thanks to the magic of the DVR we were able to go back and see where, smack in the middle near the top, there was a listing saying "Card #" with a string of numbers starting with 8100- as many credit cards do- as well as a full page containing what appears to be lists of bank account numbers as well as, apparently, grandma's other financial information.
So, for those who may not be as criminally-minded as others, the poor old lady who had gotten scammed for $30,000 now stands to be a victim of identity theft- if not direct theft- all because someone edited in a shot the videographer caught on his camera and gave no thought to what information it might contain.
It all seems symptomatic of the new "stripped down news," produced by newsrooms that are filled with half as many reporters who are being asked to do twice as much work at half the wages. Many have fled journalism for the PR field and, although those that are left are usually the best and the brightest, this kind of thing shows what happens when they're spread too thin.
It's bad enough that this has led to a dearth of investigative and enterprise journalism. But it's simply unacceptable when even the crime reporting that remains is only a watered down gravy-substitute of pseudo-news, containing not just lumps but unknown and unidentifiable substances that can regurgitate causing heartburn aplenty for the already-ill.
Showing posts with label Investigative reporting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Investigative reporting. Show all posts
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Monday, April 26, 2010
THE HARD PREJUDICE OF HIGH EXPECTATIONS
THE HARD PREJUDICE OF HIGH EXPECTATIONS: When we first heard about the new “Peer News” project- E-Bay founder Pierre Omidyar’s new Hawai`i based on-line journalism project- we were excited to say the least.
Afterall he’d hired John Temple, late of the now defunct Rocky Mountain News as editor and what with slowly dying “he said she said”, ledeing/bleeding, corporate TV and print press- all of it Honolulu centric- we’d expected that soon we’d be seeing a healthy dose of investigative and enterprise journalism and investigative reporting.
We looked forward to them digging deep into the corruption behind the daily reporting headlines, along the lines of what ProPublica.org is doing nationally or sites like CaliforniaWatch.com, Voice of San Diego, New England Center for Investigative Reporting, WisconsinWatch.org or The Bay Citizen are doing in their local markets.
Thanks to Ian Lind for the list and descriptions of each in his piece last Thursday, Peering at the Civil Beat,
Civil Beat.com is the name of the news venture as previewed last Tuesday in a soft launch with a the promise of a May 4 official “launch” and Ian, like us- and apparently many people- is apparently more than a little disappointed.
First eyebrow raised was at the price- a $240 a year tag ($20 a month) which ‘Disappeared News’ Larry Geller called “a gated community”, which as he and others have pointed out is more than even the Wall Street Journal charges.
We were prepared for paying for great content, even if many of those leaving comments on Ian’s piece thought it was way too much. But as far as we’re concerned the problem isn’t the price but the mission of Civil Beat itself.
Omidyar’s introductory piece speaks volumes for those who have been looking for what the “publications” listed above offer. He writes
Welcome to Civil Beat! We're glad you're here. We are building a new civic square for Hawaii, and we hope you'll join us.
One thing I've noticed since moving back here four years ago is that Hawaii is blessed to have many people who are committed to making our Islands a better place to live...
(L)earning from people who have different backgrounds from ourselves, and being enriched by it -- informs what we are trying to build here: a new kind of civic square.
What does it mean to build a civic square? For us, it's about building a place where we can all learn about and better understand our home, the challenges we face, and debate and discover ideas and strategies for moving forward. Our greatest asset in successfully doing that is the richness and diversity that Hawaii represents. In my experience, the best solutions come out of discussions that involve a diversity of points of view, conducted in a respectful and good-faith search for common ground and meaningful compromise.
That's what we're going to try to do. But building a new civic square isn't something any of us has done before. We're going to be learning constantly as we build. One thing we're pretty sure about, however, is that we have to start with a different kind of news service.
High minded words but more notable for what it isn’t than what it is. Compare it to the statements of the others- quoted in Ian’s piece- and you find none of those words like
-shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them
-exposes injustice, waste, mismanagement, wrongdoing, questionable practices, and corruption so that those responsible can be held to account and so the public can be armed with the information needed to debate solutions and spark change.
-arm citizens with information needed to fully participate in the democratic process (and) hold the powerful – including major institutions, officials and policy makers – accountable to the public.
-Protect the vulnerable. Expose wrongdoing. Seek solutions to problems.
Omidyar makes it clear that his main thrust will be to create:
a new civic square without putting up any news articles. That’s different – a news service without news, at least initially. It’s intentional. We want to begin by talking with you about what we’re doing, to hear what you want from us and what you think we should be asking. We believe conversation and civil debate with our reporter-hosts and with other members is central to what will make Civil Beat valuable.
That’s apparently exactly what his reporter-hosts are for the most part, doing now if you read through the blog formatted entries so far- throwing out short bursts of some facts and soliciting feedback.
But if Omidyar’s mission is not what we were expecting, Editor Temple’s description of the nuts and bolts make it clear we’re at the wrong place.
I’d like to tell you about the journalism you can expect to find here from our team of reporter-hosts. It’s different. And I’m excited to begin talking with you about it before we start publishing articles on May 4.
We start this news service with the belief that we’re here to serve you. That means our daily work is to ask the important questions citizens might have in the face of the complex issues facing our community. And to answer them in a way that helps members reach an informed opinion, based on our reporting and the discussion that will take place as we together create the new civic square.
While there are people who complain that reporters talk “at” and not “with” readers we suspect that their number is small compared to those who just want more out of reporters than shallow “sound bite” interviews from the “two sides”. All that’s seems new here is that the reporters will actually answer the commenters, unlike most news sites.
But if a reporters’ next story is limited to living up to the rather limited expectations of their readers- as opposed to “enterprise journalism” where a story writes itself based on days, weeks or even months of research, evolving as the facts present themselves- it will be a rather limited product since readers generally “don’t know what they don’t know” as the saying goes.
The kicker is that apparently the content- the news article, as it were- are going to be open to non-members and those who pay are essentially paying for the ability to “comment” and “discuss” issues raised by their seven “reporter-host(s)”.
It’s truly baffling. While there are differences between Omidyar’s for-profit model and the non-profit nature of most of these other new local sites this venture seems to be more of a social networking site than a news site... a kind of Facebook for news and politics junkies like us.
Apparently its business model is not to sign up those who crave deeper news reporting without the economic biases of the shallow corporate-controlled press but to take advantage of the boom in “comments” on blogs, on-line versions of print newspapers and social networking sites and to do it for an issue-oriented audience.
The only difference seems to be that Civil Beat will mandate that all comments be, well, civil- as a matter of fact that’s why they named it that. They are apparently not going to take “anonymous” comments which is a plus. But who’s going to determine what’s civil and what’s not is a question that’s eventually going to have to be answered.
But even so, it’s gotten to the point where we personally never leave or even read comments at newspaper sites anymore and only sometimes peruse the comment sections at blogs and only very occasionally leave a comment- and then only in order to provide information pertinent to the post not the other comments... something that is many times the last thing you find in most comment sections.
Even the blogs with the best comment sections are generally dominated by those who seem to choose up sides and go at it with “conventional wisdom” comments reflecting their side’s take on the issue. Some are even paid to do so, as evidenced by how some of the more prominent blogs like Derrick DePledge’s and Dave Shapiro’s at the Honolulu Advertiser grow in length when candidates for office are mentioned... or the issue is Honolulu rail.
Maybe we’re wrong. Maybe we’re missing something. We certainly will find out on May 4 and will certainly return to the subject. We really hate to be so critical so soon but after a ponderous weekend we felt the need to say this now rather than later.
So far, paying $20 a month to be able to leave comments- even if it is billed as a discussion with a civil “town hall” format- doesn’t sound like what we or most people were expecting, waiting for or are willing to shell out $20 a month to do.
Afterall he’d hired John Temple, late of the now defunct Rocky Mountain News as editor and what with slowly dying “he said she said”, ledeing/bleeding, corporate TV and print press- all of it Honolulu centric- we’d expected that soon we’d be seeing a healthy dose of investigative and enterprise journalism and investigative reporting.
We looked forward to them digging deep into the corruption behind the daily reporting headlines, along the lines of what ProPublica.org is doing nationally or sites like CaliforniaWatch.com, Voice of San Diego, New England Center for Investigative Reporting, WisconsinWatch.org or The Bay Citizen are doing in their local markets.
Thanks to Ian Lind for the list and descriptions of each in his piece last Thursday, Peering at the Civil Beat,
Civil Beat.com is the name of the news venture as previewed last Tuesday in a soft launch with a the promise of a May 4 official “launch” and Ian, like us- and apparently many people- is apparently more than a little disappointed.
First eyebrow raised was at the price- a $240 a year tag ($20 a month) which ‘Disappeared News’ Larry Geller called “a gated community”, which as he and others have pointed out is more than even the Wall Street Journal charges.
We were prepared for paying for great content, even if many of those leaving comments on Ian’s piece thought it was way too much. But as far as we’re concerned the problem isn’t the price but the mission of Civil Beat itself.
Omidyar’s introductory piece speaks volumes for those who have been looking for what the “publications” listed above offer. He writes
Welcome to Civil Beat! We're glad you're here. We are building a new civic square for Hawaii, and we hope you'll join us.
One thing I've noticed since moving back here four years ago is that Hawaii is blessed to have many people who are committed to making our Islands a better place to live...
(L)earning from people who have different backgrounds from ourselves, and being enriched by it -- informs what we are trying to build here: a new kind of civic square.
What does it mean to build a civic square? For us, it's about building a place where we can all learn about and better understand our home, the challenges we face, and debate and discover ideas and strategies for moving forward. Our greatest asset in successfully doing that is the richness and diversity that Hawaii represents. In my experience, the best solutions come out of discussions that involve a diversity of points of view, conducted in a respectful and good-faith search for common ground and meaningful compromise.
That's what we're going to try to do. But building a new civic square isn't something any of us has done before. We're going to be learning constantly as we build. One thing we're pretty sure about, however, is that we have to start with a different kind of news service.
High minded words but more notable for what it isn’t than what it is. Compare it to the statements of the others- quoted in Ian’s piece- and you find none of those words like
-shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them
-exposes injustice, waste, mismanagement, wrongdoing, questionable practices, and corruption so that those responsible can be held to account and so the public can be armed with the information needed to debate solutions and spark change.
-arm citizens with information needed to fully participate in the democratic process (and) hold the powerful – including major institutions, officials and policy makers – accountable to the public.
-Protect the vulnerable. Expose wrongdoing. Seek solutions to problems.
Omidyar makes it clear that his main thrust will be to create:
a new civic square without putting up any news articles. That’s different – a news service without news, at least initially. It’s intentional. We want to begin by talking with you about what we’re doing, to hear what you want from us and what you think we should be asking. We believe conversation and civil debate with our reporter-hosts and with other members is central to what will make Civil Beat valuable.
That’s apparently exactly what his reporter-hosts are for the most part, doing now if you read through the blog formatted entries so far- throwing out short bursts of some facts and soliciting feedback.
But if Omidyar’s mission is not what we were expecting, Editor Temple’s description of the nuts and bolts make it clear we’re at the wrong place.
I’d like to tell you about the journalism you can expect to find here from our team of reporter-hosts. It’s different. And I’m excited to begin talking with you about it before we start publishing articles on May 4.
We start this news service with the belief that we’re here to serve you. That means our daily work is to ask the important questions citizens might have in the face of the complex issues facing our community. And to answer them in a way that helps members reach an informed opinion, based on our reporting and the discussion that will take place as we together create the new civic square.
While there are people who complain that reporters talk “at” and not “with” readers we suspect that their number is small compared to those who just want more out of reporters than shallow “sound bite” interviews from the “two sides”. All that’s seems new here is that the reporters will actually answer the commenters, unlike most news sites.
But if a reporters’ next story is limited to living up to the rather limited expectations of their readers- as opposed to “enterprise journalism” where a story writes itself based on days, weeks or even months of research, evolving as the facts present themselves- it will be a rather limited product since readers generally “don’t know what they don’t know” as the saying goes.
The kicker is that apparently the content- the news article, as it were- are going to be open to non-members and those who pay are essentially paying for the ability to “comment” and “discuss” issues raised by their seven “reporter-host(s)”.
It’s truly baffling. While there are differences between Omidyar’s for-profit model and the non-profit nature of most of these other new local sites this venture seems to be more of a social networking site than a news site... a kind of Facebook for news and politics junkies like us.
Apparently its business model is not to sign up those who crave deeper news reporting without the economic biases of the shallow corporate-controlled press but to take advantage of the boom in “comments” on blogs, on-line versions of print newspapers and social networking sites and to do it for an issue-oriented audience.
The only difference seems to be that Civil Beat will mandate that all comments be, well, civil- as a matter of fact that’s why they named it that. They are apparently not going to take “anonymous” comments which is a plus. But who’s going to determine what’s civil and what’s not is a question that’s eventually going to have to be answered.
But even so, it’s gotten to the point where we personally never leave or even read comments at newspaper sites anymore and only sometimes peruse the comment sections at blogs and only very occasionally leave a comment- and then only in order to provide information pertinent to the post not the other comments... something that is many times the last thing you find in most comment sections.
Even the blogs with the best comment sections are generally dominated by those who seem to choose up sides and go at it with “conventional wisdom” comments reflecting their side’s take on the issue. Some are even paid to do so, as evidenced by how some of the more prominent blogs like Derrick DePledge’s and Dave Shapiro’s at the Honolulu Advertiser grow in length when candidates for office are mentioned... or the issue is Honolulu rail.
Maybe we’re wrong. Maybe we’re missing something. We certainly will find out on May 4 and will certainly return to the subject. We really hate to be so critical so soon but after a ponderous weekend we felt the need to say this now rather than later.
So far, paying $20 a month to be able to leave comments- even if it is billed as a discussion with a civil “town hall” format- doesn’t sound like what we or most people were expecting, waiting for or are willing to shell out $20 a month to do.
Monday, March 2, 2009
YOU CAN KEEP THE BONES
YOU CAN KEEP THE BONES: It’s official now. Every columnist and blogger in the nation and the state has put in their two cents about the demise of newspapers.
And even those that pillory the commercial media mourn the death of the technology that has been its chief enabler.
Certainly something will be lost as the corporate media consolidation continues it’s dirty work The only question is do we keep the bathwater and tub along with the baby?
Newspaper reporters’ resumes litter the job websites. Many either find PR work, start their novels or go on-line and work for free. Or they wait tables.
There are many reasons expounded upon as to why news dailies are dying and most center around the lack of adaptability of the advertising-supported business model inherent in the new on-line news world.
But local and regional newspapers have had a dirty little secret for at least a decade. In-depth investigative daily coverage of business and government has been replaced in our cup by freeze-dried crystals of pap and fluff seasoned flavor enhanced with blood and sex.
Oh sure they still give out Pulitzers every year. But there are far fewer eligible articles and series and the ones that do win are no, er, prize-winners but rather usually a result of a reporter stumbling upon a disaster, finding a tear to jerk or skewering some other equally insipid subject matter..
Locally, among the dozens of Honolulu Advertiser and Star-Bulletin firings (ok-layoffs) in the last few years are some of the best reporters around. But any one of them will tell you they never did get to do any investigative pieces – or even got to cover those types of stories.
The truth is that if a story isn’t a very short burst of “now” information– preferably with a couple of “he said she said” opposing quotes- editors at both papers don’t want it
Result? Over the last few years you can count the number of investigative news pieces on one hand.
There were probably two last year- Rob Perez’s charities piece and Derrick DePledge’s Superferry document prowl. And neither was really more than a on-and-off.
Even the political coverage at the papers is horrible – both Richard Borreca at the Star Bulletin and Jerry Burris at the Advertiser are dry as dust and less perceptive and incisive in their coverage. Their analyses make conventional wisdom look like radical rants.
Certainly some if not many of those reporters on the unemployment lines are no big loss to the profession. If they land a flack-catching job as a mouthpiece for a big polluter or a corrupt pol it’s because that’s probably appropriate given the kind of journalist they were.
But there are experienced reporters out there who do have the skills- and the fire in the belly- it take to take on powerful authorities and speak truth to them.
Many keep their chops up on-line where they find out another open secret- there is not now and there never will be a way to transfer the commercial and advertising model from newspaper dailies to on-line news.
We keep hearing that the oxymoronic :”newspaper web sites” haven’t figured out a way to get enough advertising revenue on-line.. yet. But that’s simply the physical nature of the beast and the fact that no one has come up with one apparently means there just isn’t one.
You can force the eye to an ad in a newspaper because just the act of turning the page and looking for the article causes the reader to have to examine the page just to find the article. Not so on a computer screen where one can more easily focus only on the central list of content on an index page or the one-article-per-page text and never really “see” even the one or two ads on a page,
As the future unfolds the only way an original news proving web site is going to survive is that we are going to have to start paying for it.
The big question is, what is “it”.. Is it that crap that passes for reporting these days packaged around, the latest gruesome car crash, the murder of the day, the baby with a terminal disease and “news” of the wonderful new restaurant down the block?... and don’t forget weather, sports, entertainment and Sudoku.
The “important” stuff in commercial newspapers has already died in many places such as where local papers on the mainland contract out coverage of their government meetings via TV to India. And what is reported is provided sans context.
Well guess what?- no one’s gonna pay for that. It’s too ubiquitous and anyone can provide it. And it’s not like that’s the kind of “news” for which we need three different views or want to avoid having a single voice reporting upon.
But that’s a good thing Because if they’ll pay for anything what people will pay for is good in depth and investigative reporting. That’s something they can’t even get now- perhaps when they see it again they’ll remember what it was.
As luck would have it everything is lined up to help make a venture to provide that service- the one thing that all the pundits agree on is people will actually miss when commercial newspapers die.
First of all there just happens to be a glut of good experienced reporters ready willing and able to do that kind of reporting.
Second it just so happens that the means of physical production involved in the “business” of providing news has made the switch away from requiring hard assets like printing presses and office buildings (and transportation to get there) that consume a forest of paper and oceans of ink every day. It now requires little more than people sitting in home offices linked by computers and telephones.
The business models possible in this new world are many and varied, By the piece or by salary, any model from a corporate owner-editor-reporter system to a co-op or consortium of reporters to a non-profit, reader-sponsored entity- or anything in between- could succeed..
Today Denver, tomorrow Seattle, next week San Francisco. As newspapers disappear- and their web sites with them- the content people are looking for is going to settle into two on-line groupings.
First is the commercial stuff where most of what is reported today will most likely stay free. Business and government have an interest in keeping that kind of drivel going and for the most part it is interchangeable. It’s not hard to produce and any number of entities who will continue to do it.
They will find a way to provide the bread and circuses for those who crave it and we have confidence that even if advertising dies they’ll do it, as they do now already, through content.
And even if there’s only one source, no big loss. One crossword puzzle or movie review in one paper isn’t that much different than the next and the need for more than one “voice” escapes us..
All that will leave is something minimal like $5 a month looking like a good price for the kind of local and regional reporting that comes with lots of legwork, sitting through hours of meetings and some mind-numbing document rummaging... all the stuff that costs money to pay reporters to do it.
As, as luck would have it that’s the stuff that fulfils the reason d'etre for a free press which we all hold to be essential.
If 1/10th of the people “subscribe” in a region of a million people, $6 million a year should be plenty to hire a few dozen reporters and editors and buy some computers with broadband connections, all with enough left over for a Lexis-Nexis subscription..
We doubt those who are qualified will read this and jump head long into a brave news world. But as the circumstances move from future tense to the present perfect it just might be the only way for real reporting to survive.
And even those that pillory the commercial media mourn the death of the technology that has been its chief enabler.
Certainly something will be lost as the corporate media consolidation continues it’s dirty work The only question is do we keep the bathwater and tub along with the baby?
Newspaper reporters’ resumes litter the job websites. Many either find PR work, start their novels or go on-line and work for free. Or they wait tables.
There are many reasons expounded upon as to why news dailies are dying and most center around the lack of adaptability of the advertising-supported business model inherent in the new on-line news world.
But local and regional newspapers have had a dirty little secret for at least a decade. In-depth investigative daily coverage of business and government has been replaced in our cup by freeze-dried crystals of pap and fluff seasoned flavor enhanced with blood and sex.
Oh sure they still give out Pulitzers every year. But there are far fewer eligible articles and series and the ones that do win are no, er, prize-winners but rather usually a result of a reporter stumbling upon a disaster, finding a tear to jerk or skewering some other equally insipid subject matter..
Locally, among the dozens of Honolulu Advertiser and Star-Bulletin firings (ok-layoffs) in the last few years are some of the best reporters around. But any one of them will tell you they never did get to do any investigative pieces – or even got to cover those types of stories.
The truth is that if a story isn’t a very short burst of “now” information– preferably with a couple of “he said she said” opposing quotes- editors at both papers don’t want it
Result? Over the last few years you can count the number of investigative news pieces on one hand.
There were probably two last year- Rob Perez’s charities piece and Derrick DePledge’s Superferry document prowl. And neither was really more than a on-and-off.
Even the political coverage at the papers is horrible – both Richard Borreca at the Star Bulletin and Jerry Burris at the Advertiser are dry as dust and less perceptive and incisive in their coverage. Their analyses make conventional wisdom look like radical rants.
Certainly some if not many of those reporters on the unemployment lines are no big loss to the profession. If they land a flack-catching job as a mouthpiece for a big polluter or a corrupt pol it’s because that’s probably appropriate given the kind of journalist they were.
But there are experienced reporters out there who do have the skills- and the fire in the belly- it take to take on powerful authorities and speak truth to them.
Many keep their chops up on-line where they find out another open secret- there is not now and there never will be a way to transfer the commercial and advertising model from newspaper dailies to on-line news.
We keep hearing that the oxymoronic :”newspaper web sites” haven’t figured out a way to get enough advertising revenue on-line.. yet. But that’s simply the physical nature of the beast and the fact that no one has come up with one apparently means there just isn’t one.
You can force the eye to an ad in a newspaper because just the act of turning the page and looking for the article causes the reader to have to examine the page just to find the article. Not so on a computer screen where one can more easily focus only on the central list of content on an index page or the one-article-per-page text and never really “see” even the one or two ads on a page,
As the future unfolds the only way an original news proving web site is going to survive is that we are going to have to start paying for it.
The big question is, what is “it”.. Is it that crap that passes for reporting these days packaged around, the latest gruesome car crash, the murder of the day, the baby with a terminal disease and “news” of the wonderful new restaurant down the block?... and don’t forget weather, sports, entertainment and Sudoku.
The “important” stuff in commercial newspapers has already died in many places such as where local papers on the mainland contract out coverage of their government meetings via TV to India. And what is reported is provided sans context.
Well guess what?- no one’s gonna pay for that. It’s too ubiquitous and anyone can provide it. And it’s not like that’s the kind of “news” for which we need three different views or want to avoid having a single voice reporting upon.
But that’s a good thing Because if they’ll pay for anything what people will pay for is good in depth and investigative reporting. That’s something they can’t even get now- perhaps when they see it again they’ll remember what it was.
As luck would have it everything is lined up to help make a venture to provide that service- the one thing that all the pundits agree on is people will actually miss when commercial newspapers die.
First of all there just happens to be a glut of good experienced reporters ready willing and able to do that kind of reporting.
Second it just so happens that the means of physical production involved in the “business” of providing news has made the switch away from requiring hard assets like printing presses and office buildings (and transportation to get there) that consume a forest of paper and oceans of ink every day. It now requires little more than people sitting in home offices linked by computers and telephones.
The business models possible in this new world are many and varied, By the piece or by salary, any model from a corporate owner-editor-reporter system to a co-op or consortium of reporters to a non-profit, reader-sponsored entity- or anything in between- could succeed..
Today Denver, tomorrow Seattle, next week San Francisco. As newspapers disappear- and their web sites with them- the content people are looking for is going to settle into two on-line groupings.
First is the commercial stuff where most of what is reported today will most likely stay free. Business and government have an interest in keeping that kind of drivel going and for the most part it is interchangeable. It’s not hard to produce and any number of entities who will continue to do it.
They will find a way to provide the bread and circuses for those who crave it and we have confidence that even if advertising dies they’ll do it, as they do now already, through content.
And even if there’s only one source, no big loss. One crossword puzzle or movie review in one paper isn’t that much different than the next and the need for more than one “voice” escapes us..
All that will leave is something minimal like $5 a month looking like a good price for the kind of local and regional reporting that comes with lots of legwork, sitting through hours of meetings and some mind-numbing document rummaging... all the stuff that costs money to pay reporters to do it.
As, as luck would have it that’s the stuff that fulfils the reason d'etre for a free press which we all hold to be essential.
If 1/10th of the people “subscribe” in a region of a million people, $6 million a year should be plenty to hire a few dozen reporters and editors and buy some computers with broadband connections, all with enough left over for a Lexis-Nexis subscription..
We doubt those who are qualified will read this and jump head long into a brave news world. But as the circumstances move from future tense to the present perfect it just might be the only way for real reporting to survive.
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