Friday, November 26, 2010
Buy a Newspaper
There was a letter, earlier this month, from the leadership of the Dutch GDP news syndicate, the organization I have served since 2001 as a regular op-ed contributor. The relationship will have to come to an end due to a reorganization of the group's work. In plain language this means that money problems have made me and other outside contributors unaffordable for the syndicate and its member papers. Not only that, at the main office jobs will have to be shed also, for example by having certain staff members over 60 take early retirement. It's unfortunate for me, because I really enjoy doing these op-eds and I think they're good for me as a contemporary historian, but the news is worse for what it says about the state of the news business. I haven't looked at numbers recently, but the problem is that fewer and fewer people choose to pay for the news they consume. While the internet makes it easy (overwhelming may be a better term) to gather news for free, I think declining subscriber figures show that not enough people think hard enough about how serious, reliable reporting emerges. Not enough people seem to realize that a professional news organization, employing knowledgeable and experienced reporters, costs more money than advertising provides. What's needed, therefore, is for more people to find a way to pay for at least part of the news they consume on a daily basis. There's nothing wrong with getting most of your information on-line, as long as you also take out a subscription from a news organization (or maybe two) or donate something from time to time. Without solid, professional reporting lots of information and, especially, opinions will continue to clutter the internet. That is not the same as having a reliable, independent press, even though it may look like it. Traditional news organizations, such as newspapers, will, of course, have to adapt to a changing media landscape. No matter how you look at it, however, we're going to need professional journalists (people doing this full-time, as a career) to get us the facts, to ask the tough questions, to put specific information in its proper context and in its proper relationship to other developments. Those people, and their organizations, will need to get paid, and they will need to get paid in part directly by us, the consumers of their work. If you believe in open societies, in a free press, ask yourself what it takes really to have all this; then ask yourself if you're doing enough to make it happen. Buy a newspaper.
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8 comments:
Good point, Ruud. In addition to the decline in quality, we should also be thinking about longterm access to records. Written records on a permanent media like paper provide a narrative for history. If news becomes the daily web page, which is updated to something else the next day (or next hour), we should be concerned about maintenance of that day's record. If you cannot get to review old documents chronologically, like you can in a library by reading back runs of newspapers, and have to trust the historical record to be kept safe on a computer server somewhere in another state or country for the next 50 years...hmmmm, will in be available, and if it is available will in be free to browse? We need to keep the press viable and published in a stable format like paper so there will be something in 50 years that was published today that provides today's events...John
Good point. Newspaper and other reporting is the first draft of history, and we would be much worse off without that kind of a record. Enjoy the Dirty Dozen tomorrow--sorry to miss it again!
Tried to post this earlier but I managed to disappear the comment somehow. So here's attempt number two...
One of my interests is climate change. I can get accurate, sophisticated information on the science and the policy implications of climate change directly from scientific journals, think tanks, NGOs, government technical reports, and international organizations. All of these sources provide information that is readily intelligible to the educated layperson. There is simply no need to interpose a middleman -- i.e. a newspaper reporter -- between me and the information.
Especially when so much of the information about climate change in the newspapers of my native country, the United States, is either superficial or empirically false. U.S. newspapers routinely grant equal time to climate change deniers funded by the petroleum industry. This renders U.S. newspapers virtually useless on this subject.
Foreign newspapers don't have the same tendency, but again, I can consult the appropriate sources directly and get information on climate change that is more in depth and more analytically sophisticated. These direct sources do a much better job of putting the subject in context and posing the hard policy questions than the limited space of a newspaper (or the limited training of most print journalists) could ever provide.
As far as I can tell, the same set of observations apply to just about every contemporary public policy issue in existence. Newspapers are unnecessary at best and pernicious at worst. Paying for any of them would be a waste of money and time.
So despite fond memories from youth of coffee and the op-ed page on Sunday morning, I'm quite happy to watch the entire newspaper industry wither and die.
Um, sorry to be an extremist jerk about it. I'm all for writers getting paid to enlighten people. I wrote book reviews for our local weekly newspaper for a while and it was great. I just think there are better ways for good writing to make its way to an audience.
Plus I'm naturally crabby.
that may work for you, on this and maybe one or two other issues, but I think it's utterly unrealistic to expect a great number of people to troll the great unflushed public toilet aka the internet to find credible information on even the most fundamental of issues relevant to their lives and times; I'm sure traditional reporting will have to change--it already has--but there's no doubt in my mind that we would be much worse off without credible, professional media organizations such as serious newspapers providing a reliable first, daily look at the important issues of the day--call them gateways, if you want; having this all in one place is another fundamental strenght; whether it has to come in paper form, that will be for individuals to decide (personally I hope enough people like me will remain to make it worthwhile for newsorganizations to keep putting out paper versions of their work; speaking of paper versions, there will be two delivered to the house in the next hour, so I'll head home now to claim the Laz-y-boy with them (on the train there, I'll try to make it to the Science & Technology section of my Economist, or maybe I'll read their report on learning to live with climate change--about which, I'm guessing, you have a few things to say also)
Conveying reliable knowledge about current events and policy issues to large numbers of people is a lovely goal to have. What's utterly unrealistic is to expect that goal to be served by an eighteenth century technology policed by a small group of diploma-mill functionaries who confuse their own economic interests with the general welfare of a democratic society.
You yourself concede that newspapers are losing revenue and audiences to competition from other media -- which means television, radio, and the internet. Normally, the David Brooks/Tommy Friedman view of the world, which you hold so dear, sees market competition as a wonderful thing. If my local hardware store goes out of business because of competition from Wal-Mart, then the centrist-pragmatist pundits, in their worship of your dearly beloved Clinton-Obama policy agenda, would say: golly, the market sure can be harsh, but in the end we're better off for mom and pop's hardware store going belly up.
Oh, but now it's newspapers. That's different. When newspapers get crushed by the juggernaut of global media consolidation, that's bad. You and your buddies in the foreign policy establishment preach to us socialist simpletons about the benefits of globalization when it wipes out whole industries that happen to employ our families. But I'm expected to start blubbering over the tragic loss of Tommy “Suck on this” Friedman's latest syndicated column at my local news stand.
Whatever. Let's pretend we have to save the newspapers. Your solution is for newspapers to "adapt to a changing media landscape" and to "change" traditional reporting. You don't specify what these generalities actually mean. The only specific recommendation you offer is to insist that I, me, personally, the reader of your blog, should pay money for a newspaper. You say that I should part with my money because newspapers are a uniquely reliable, centralized, easy-to-access source of Information, which you contrast with "opinion" and the "unflushed toilet" of the internet.
Well. Let's see. After I've paid for food, bills, debt, unexpected car repairs or ambulance rides, and so on, I have about 200 U.S. dollars or so per month as disposable income. So maybe I'll decide to use a bit of that vast sum to pay for my news, the way you say that I should. How about Tommy Friedman's employers? Would that be good enough for your noble purpose? A seven-days per week subscription to the New York Times costs $59.20 per month, after the initial mirage-like 12-week discount expires. $59.20 would force me to spend about 20% every month of my available personal money for the New York Times.
Oh, gosh, alright, you never actually told me to buy the Times in particular. So, as an alternative, maybe I could opt for a cheaper newspaper, like the Albuquerque Journal. But your goal, as I understand it, is for me to have access to a quality first draft of history, courtesy of the best available gate-keepers. From your mainstream perspective, I think the New York Times would be my best bet. But after purchasing my subscription to the Gray Lady, I have less money for dining with friends, seeing a movie, buying birthday gifts for my nieces and nephews, contributing to local environmental groups, or whatever. All because you believe that it's important for me to support a failing business model that provides what you think of as accurate, conveniently collated information.
[CONTINUED]
I'm not saying there are no such things as facts, or logic, or rationality, or objective external reality. I am saying that every knowledge source has a perspective. This perspective influences how a source transmits its view of facts, logic, and rationality to an audience. No single source of information should be regarded as inherently, uniquely the most reliable, credible, and indispensable.
Your blog argues the opposite. You say that I have some sort of ethical duty to pay money to support one particular source of information – and therefore its political and cultural perspective. I don't agree. I also don't agree that supporting one information source – mainstream newspapers and their view of the world – is vital to maintaining the health of public discourse in democratic societies. Quite the opposite. Democracy needs a diversity of sources and perspectives, not a single set of gate-keepers. I got this craaaazy notion from some fucking socialist retard named James Madison, author of The Federalist: Number 10.
I agree with you that transmitting empirically sound knowledge and intellectually rigorous analysis (from a broad variety of sources and perspectives) in a convenient format to a broad audience is a worthwhile goal. But alternative methods, beyond newspapers, exist for pursuing that goal. Radio, television, and the internet reach billions of people, a feat which traditional print newspapers, even with their sputtering internet content, will never match. If there is hope for delivering quality news and analysis to a broad audience, it lies in electronic and broadcast media. Not in dried leaflets made from the husks of dead trees. You mentioned the convenience of assembling the news in one place. Well, golly, I can reconfigure my Google News page to display a broad array of daily stories and sources, all in one convenient, easy to access source. I don't need to rely on your credible, reliable gate-keepers to do it for me.
But you disagree. It comes down to that. You think that I, personally, do need to rely on those gate keepers. They are a very small group of people who conveniently share your particular center-right world view. And you say it's not just me who should trust them, but all the poor souls in America who lack the time, energy, or ability to filter the news themselves. They need the wise ones of the center right to do it for them. The people need well paid professionals (who can afford unpaid internships and hyper-expensive degrees from Big Name Universities) at the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post to decide which facts are important and what explanations should be deployed. American audiences, you believe, won't or can't do this themselves. Maybe you're right. The inability of the American people (and other people too) to gather and understand knowledge of their world is a tremendous problem. You think it can be solved very simply – by me, and my fellow readers, giving money to an elite group of professionals who share your political preferences.
I don't think it's wise for anyone to rely on your small, favored group to report only one set of facts and interpretations on matters affecting the prosperity and peace of millions of people. Like, say, whether to launch a ruthless and stupid war against Iraq based on deliberate, systematic horseshit. I don't think center-right publications based on eighteenth century communications technology should be trusted as gate-keepers of knowledge. On every major public policy issue – war, finances, social programs, climate, energy, and much else – there is a compelling intellectual case to be made that the center-right international consensus is failing. And that newspapers, as purveyors of that consensus, have contributed to its failure and the increasingly horrific consequences. Your gate-keepers are part of the reason why the future of our civilization is looking so very dark. Peak oil and climate change are coming, and with them most likely war and suffering and death on an enormous scale, and while it's beginning your beloved newspapers uncritically vomit stories that are facile gibberish (liberals cost Democrats the election, waaaaahhh) if they aren't a worthless pack of lies (Social Security is going bankrupt, the causes of climate change are debatable, cheap oil will keep flowing).
Yeah, you don't share my scandalously unhinged view of the world. Most of the time, my ridiculously isolated and irrelevant views on political economy have exactly zero chance of influencing the real world. Whereas you get to sit at fancy conferences having sober and serious discussions that will actually matter. It's kind of nice when history sides with a useless crank like me for a change. Newspapers are dying, thanks to the ruthless global capitalism that newspaper reporters and pundits adore so much. Congratulations.
really busy now (big panel tomorrow where I'm supposed to give insightful comments); for now, I'll say, first, thank you, and second, "buying a newspaper" can also mean sending a little money to NPR, PBS, Pacifica Radio, Salon (do they still charge?)--I mean, the people, whoever they are, providing us with reliable information need to pay the bills, that's an important aspect, isn't it? plus (then I'll have to stop) what I see now that the ice and snow are making me ride the train is just about everybody picking up these free "newspapers" (entirely funded by advertising), with a great many of them probably thinking that they're a good, certainly cheap, way of keeping up with the news--it's with those people in mind also that I argue for the survival of professional news organizations, warts and all
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