So the U.S. Senate held a hearing recently on the future of newspapers, which these days is about as oxymoronic a subject heading as you’re likely to find. There was the predictable new media/old media split between Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post proclaiming the virtues of the brave new world of online journalism, and James Moroney, publisher of the beleaguered (what paper isn’t?) Dallas Morning News, bemoaning the current state of affairs.
But the most alarming and yet ultimately inspiring testimony came from David Simon, an ex-Baltimore newspaperman who drew upon his experiences as an ink-stained city reporter to produce the acclaimed series “The Wire.”
With barely concealed anger, Simon told the senators that journalism of the kind done by trained professionals is dying, “and unless a new economic model is achieved, it will not be reborn on the web or anywhere else.
Aggregators Leech Content
“The internet is a marvelous tool, and clearly it is the information delivery system of our future,” he added. “But thus far, it does not deliver much first-generation reporting.”
Instead, he said, “it leeches that reporting from mainstream news publications, whereupon aggregating websites and bloggers contribute little more than repetition, commentary and froth. Meanwhile, readers acquire news from aggregators and abandon its point of origin, namely the newspapers themselves.”
“In short,” Simon testified, “the parasite is slowly killing the host.”
Citizen Journalists, Bloggers Can't Replace Professional Reporters
Bloggers and citizen journalists are all very well and good, he said.
“But you do not, in my city, run into bloggers or so-called citizen journalists at City Hall or in the courthouse hallways or at the bars where police officers gather. You don’t see them consistently nurturing and then pressing others—pressing sources. You don’t see them holding institutions accountable on a daily basis.
“Why? Because high-end journalism is a profession. It requires daily full-time commitment by trained men and women who return to the same beats day in and day out.”
Reporting, Simon said, “was the hardest and, in some ways, most gratifying job I ever had. I’m offended to think that anyone anywhere believes American monoliths, as insulated, self-preserving and self-justifying as police departments, school systems, legislatures and chief executives, can be held to gathered facts by amateurs pursuing the task without compensation, training or, for that matter, sufficient standing to make public officials even care who it is they’re lying to or who they’re withholding information from.”
New Business Model Is Needed
If newspapers as an industry are to survive, they must find a way to charge for charge for online content, he said.
“Yes, I’ve heard the postmodern rallying cry that information wants to be free,” he added. “But information isn’t. It costs money to send reporters to London, to Fallujah, to Capitol Hill, and to send photographers with them, to keep them there day after day. It costs money to hire the best investigators and writers and then back them up with the best editors. And how anyone can believe that the industry can fund this kind of expense by giving its product away online to aggregators and bloggers is a source of endless fascination to me.”
Simon urged the senators to consider nonprofit status and an antitrust exemption for newspapers “so they can discuss protecting copyright from aggregators and plan an industry-wide transition to a paid online subscriber base.”
Huffington, for her part, declared that “the future of quality journalism is not dependent on the future of newspapers," even though her website relies in part on free newspaper reporting.
And Huffington pooh-poohed the concept of newspapers charging for their content, saying, *I was not around when the printing press was invented. But if I were around, I imagine the people dealing with stone tablets would have had a similar argument, saying, if you just left us alone and just forgot about that printing press, we could charge you for this."
Using Simon's example, she added: “The idea that the Baltimore Sun could charge for content that would only be available to those paying for a subscription to the Baltimore Sun seems to me so antiquated.”
But Sen. John Kerry, who was overseeing the hearing, cut in: “It’s a product, it’s created by somebody, it’s intellectual property. Why is it antiquated for them to be paid for their product?”
Ad Revenue Not Going to Papers
Marissa Mayer, who oversees Google News, told the senators that that Google is actually helping newspapers by directing readers to their websites.
But Kerry pointed out that the lion’s share of online ad revenue is going to Google – not to the newspapers providing the content that readers are seeking. "It certainly isn't covering the cost of doing business," Kerry said.
"It's still very early," Mayer responded.
"It's not early for the Denver Post or Seattle Intelligencer - a bunch of folks facing bankruptcy today," Kerry retorted.
Local Reporting Being Lost
Huffington touted the fact that her website is assembling an investigative team of 10 reporters, but Simon pointed out that local and regional papers – which are in the greatest trouble – won’t be replaced by websites like the Huffington Post that focus on more glamorous national stories.
"The day I run into a Huffington Post reporter at a Baltimore zoning board hearing," said Simon, "is the day that I will be confident that we have actually reached some sort of equilibrium."
“There’s no glory in that kind of journalism, but that is the bedrock,” Simon added. Without aggressive reporters keeping an eye on local authorities, “The next 10-15 years are going to be a halcyon era for corrupt politicians.”
