Blame The Medium?

How About the Message.

It’s no secret that the newspaper business in this country is deteriorating – in some cases rapidly. Because subscriptions and daily sales are down, advertising revenues have also plummeted. This is particularly bad news in the U.S. where, according to a 2008 study, newspapers get about 87% of their revenue from ads. (In the same study, German newspapers were at 53%, British at 50%, and Japanese at 35%.)

The big question is: Why is this happening? Obviously, there are multiple reasons for the decline, but the one that seems to be mentioned the most is the transition from print to electronic media. In other words, the Internet. (Does Al Gore know how much chaos he caused?)

It’s the INTERNET’S fault?!? I’m not buying it.

Unquestionably, people have evolved in how they get news. There’s the old “Reader’s Digest/USA Today” complaint from traditional news sources: Just give ‘em the headlines and a couple of paragraphs. And don’t forget the colorful charts, too.

Then there’s TV and the “talking heads.” Why bother getting a newspaper when some smiling, perfectly-coiffed, smooth talker will read it to you? And now, the ultimate news source: the Web. Click on the headlines that interest you. Read the really short stories. View the videos. Cool. You don’t even have to go near that icky Middle East conflict stuff if you don’t want to. Hell, Lindsay Lohan’s way more interesting.

No doubt, we’ve changed. And, since selling news is a business that needs to make money, so have the people who bring it to us.

In school I was taught that journalism was a tough, yet somewhat honorable, profession. But it’s evolved, in my opinion, into something that Heidi Fleiss would be envious of: If the mindset of readership is getting shallower, give ‘em shallower! Want more National Enquirer kind of dirt? You got it. Politically to the left or right? What a coincidence. So are we! We’ll tailor the news to the audience.

What happened? Where’s the in-depth, investigative, no-spin reporting – the facts, the TRUTH – like it or not? I don’t know about you, but I can’t find it anymore.

Thankfully other professions haven’t declined in the same way. Doctors still save lives regardless of their patients’ nationalities. Law officers still help those in need in spite of their political differences. It’s called integrity and professionalism, and it just “comes with the territory.”

So then, what type of journalism panders to readership or advertisers solely for the sake of sales? Garbage journalism.

These struggling news agencies should take a long, hard look at themselves and the quality of the “products” they sell. Instead of blaming their troubles on the Internet and the electronic devices people now routinely use to communicate, they should do an honest, objective analysis on the overall worth of what it is they’re selling – the content. Does the content have real value to the consumers?

In my opinion, if a product fills a need, is superior to its competitors, and is priced fairly, it will ultimately succeed. If not, sayonara, dudes. That’s the way a free market system works. Survival of the fittest.

As a famous quote reads: When a man points a finger at someone else, he should remember that four are pointing at himself.