One of the recurring themes in the newspaper biz, and also on this blog, is how the definition of news is both constant and changing. Constant, because a good story is always a good story. Changing, because of changes in delivery methods, consumer expectations and values, the fragmenting of society etc.
That’s one of the backdrops against how the McClatchy takeover of Knight Ridder will ultimately be viewed. And it’s the fight of newspapers coast to coast—and eventually of news web sites as well. Remember this important fact: content isn’t cheap and in the end somebody has to pay for a reporter, whether she works at a newspaper or a web site, to write a story. In business terms, that’s called “monetizing”.
The Columbia Journalism Review has a good take on the coming battle. Briefly stated, the mag says that newspapers may have squandered their monopoly and now found themselves in a competitive market without the DNA to compete.
An e-mail from a dissatisfied reader made this point: “The only reason that we continue to receive the Journal in our home is because you have the monopoly on the printed, local news.”
Maybe. But monopolies—and I would disagree that we have a pure monopoly—aren’t what they used to be. There is plenty of competition. TV. Radio. Government web sites. The list goes on. I can’t speak for the business side of our company, but speaking as a journalist, I love competition. In the end, it makes you better and the reader/viewer/clicker gets the benefits.
Your host is Ken Otterbourg, the managing editor at the Winston-Salem Journal. It's a forum to discuss the media, from
Actually, “monetizing” in the corporate world—or any other, so far as I know—refers to changing fixed assets into money, e.g., selling land or factories to generate cash. It does not refer to paying reporters to gather the news.
As a former journalist, including some years on the dear old Journal, I find today’s news coverage depressing in the extreme. TV is the principal culprit (If it bleeds, it leads.), but newspapers seem to be following suit. I am sick to death of reading about six-car collisions, drive-by shootings, conflagrations and other disasters—and even sicker of interviews with the grieving survivors. Is that that the best you can do?
You refer to your daily competition, and it’s certainly there. How you deal with it, however, is an option. You can rehash the 11 o’clock TV news, or you can provide a fresh slant. I don’t see many fresh slants in Chicago papers, and I’m guessing the same is true in Winston-Salem.
Back in the day, editorial opinions were confined to what is now called the op-ed page. Today, they are rife throughout the paper. Reporters have personal prejudices, and editors—do you still have those?—seem unwilling or unable to hack them out of what purports to be objective news coverage. If you question that, I suggest you take a fresh, unbiased look at every story on yesterday’s front page. If you can honestly say that no opinion has crept into the coverage, I will be absolutely amazed. If I can see it, so can you.
Good to hear from a former Journal alum.
I don’t want to get in a definitional argument with you, but I think you miss my point about “monetizing” our assets, which for our newsroom has a lot to do with intellectual capital rather than physical assets, i.e. the printing plant. We have not been able to turn them into cash on the web, and from my standpoint, the jury is still out on whether that will happen or at what level it will happen.
I would like to think we practice serious journalism here and don’t just march to the beat of the 6 o’clock news. I also worry about the blurring line between opinion and journalism, but I also believe that this is not a new occurrence. We tend to only remember the excellent journalism of 20, 30, 40 years ago, but there was a lot of awful stuff that reflected the biases and prejudices of the time and the reporters and editors who did the work.
Just noticed this. Cash on the web. What? This connection already costs $79.95 a month. And we buy a physical paper.
And as far as newspapers, back in the day, you make a good point, Ken: It’s called Romanticism. But the way I see it, all writing is autobiographical to one degree or another. And it always has been. The line between reporting the news and writing op-ed pieces is very gray. Remember gray? Think back to the furure. Trouble is reporters, and even more importantly editors, never admit that their prejudices color the news. If they (you) did, we’d see honest dialogue.
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