The Future of News

With NY Times weekday circulation down 4% and the WSJ’s flat-to-up, it begs the question “why?” There’s no better place to start seeking an answer than by examining the front pages of the two papers above the fold. That’s where readers get their first impression and potential newsstand buyers get their final sales pitch. The contrast between the two papers could not be more stark.

Today’s WSJ front page above the fold resembles a web site’s home page. There are more than 20 headlines to choose from, all with page numbers that resemble links, directing the reader to jump back and forth between the front page and articles within. This is a paper that wants to spare the reader the trouble of turning through every page hoping to find articles of interest.

On the other hand, today’s NY Times front page above the fold features only 3 stories, and what a bunch of yawners they are! If you don’t happen to be interested in Zimbabwe, stricter rules on mortgages, or a female Muslim educator, you will not be engaged. The way we read news is changing. The WSJ is trying to keep up with it, while the Gray Lady is not. Perhaps the circulation numbers simply tell the tale.

This week at Pajamas Media I explore whether “fair and balanced” news is a good idea or just sounds good. Why is it not found in history? Could it be because nobody ever really wanted it? And, why do we need middlemen-journalists to tell us what the “straight-down-the-middle” position is, and where to place the fulcrum to deliver “balance”? Wouldn’t we be better off listening to a multitude of voices competing in a freewheeling marketplace of ideas, then deciding for ourselves? Check it out at Pajamas Media.

Cory Bergman directs our attention to the “Going Local…in a New Direction” panel at the NAB conference, where TV stations are urged to take a broader view of their local websites, given this category’s flat to down growth. They are being encouraged to launch products outside their core competencies, such as local ad networks, content aggregators, and hyperlocal communities.

But, you know something’s wrong when they’re encouraging businesses to do something they instinctively know not to do — get outside of their “core competencies.” And the good news is that one of those options is not — it’s just a stretch. Who says local TV can’t do a good job handling hyperlocal news? They have reporters, equipment, and tech skills. And, as I’ve written many times, hyperlocal news done right should be even more interesting to viewers — it more directly affects their lives than metro level news, which was always a choice forced upon consumers by technology, not something consumers ever chose on their own. But, there’s an even better reason for local TV to pounce on hyperlocal — when networks have cut-out local broadcasters as unnecessary middlemen in the supply chain, and all media has converged on the Internet, they will be competing head-to-head against former newspapers, online. And the only original content left, with an Internet full of the same stories at metro, national, and international levels is hyperlocal news. Go hyperlocal, young man!

An innocent comment by Rupert Murdoch suggests a far from innocent future of news. In a speech at Georgetown University, he predicted that as a result of increased competition, news will be available even to those who traditionally could not afford it. The history of news clearly tells us the result when that happens — news goes “low class.” That is, a larger percentage of news content caters to the less cultured tastes of the downscale. It means less politics and business, and more sex. violence, crime, and human interest. More titillation, less deliberation. More sensationalism, less restrained-ism. More T&A, less S&P.

We first saw this phenomenon in the early 1800’s, when the efficiencies of new steam-engine-driven presses allowed papers to drop their prices from 14% of a daily farm worker’s wages to a penny. Papers began running all sorts of material appealing to emotion and prurient interests. This trend stalled at the turn of the century, when the upscale seized the news industry back from the excesses of Yellow Journalism, and rallied behind the New York Times, which featured “all the news that’s fit to print.” Shut out of the mainstream news business, the downscale over time found other media to satisfy their cravings, including supermarket tabloids and TV talk shows like Jerry Springer. But as all news converges onto the Internet, much of it free, the high- and low-brow will be side-by-side, just one mouse-click away. Many journalists will have to cover stories they previously thought were beneath them in ways they thought were beneath them. Once journalists fantasized about changing the world. Soon, many will be happy just to supply the world with fantasies. Oh, how the mighty will have fallen.

This week at Pajamas Media I explore the future of reporters. One of journalists’ recurring put-downs of bloggers is that they are simply recycling someone else’s news — that there will always be a need for reporters to produce it. But, that’s just because they have lost perspective on what a reporter actually is – a middleman. On one side are news events, and on the other are audiences who want to know about them. A reporter’s job is to move “the truth” from Point A to Point B as accurately as possible. Can’t the Internet eliminate this middleman? In fact, America had a reporterless past and will likely have a reporterless future. Read all about it at Pajamas Media.

Here’s a headline you will never see in Old Media: “Matt Drudge: world’s most powerful journalist.” For that, you’d have to read London’s Telegraph, even though many American journalists know it is true. He broke the Monica Lewinsky scandal, he has been driving coverage in the Presidential primaries, and he just revealed Prince Harry’s frontline service in Afghanistan. The DrudgeReport is consistently among the top 10 news sites, a ranking he shares with only one newspaper — the NY Times.

The reason Old Media cannot admit he is the best among them is that he defies just about everything they believe in. He is fearless, in part because he is an outsider who requires no favors from those in power. He is an editor/aggregator, not a reporter. He is totally independent, publishing without review by others. When he breaks stories, his verification processes are unknown and he often publishes rumors. He gives equal billing to entertainment news and stories that are sensational or satisfy prurient interests. He is a conservative populist, not a Beltway liberal. He lacks a college degree, much less one in journalism.

Matt Drudge is the primordial life form of the New Journalist, so Old Media must begin to learn from his success and copy him. Editing/aggregating is what the future of journalism is all about, as the public learns that reporters have been little more than middleman-repeaters of stories that now can be told directly by news sources themselves. The good news is that there is room to improve upon what Matt Drudge does, for example by adding opinion and creative style to the aggregated facts, or aggregating audiences of particular value to advertisers. But, for Old Media firms looking to survive, a headline like “Matt Drudge: world’s most powerful journalist” should be read as if accompanied by his trademark flashing siren.

Hitler had Joseph Goebbels, and the American political class has FCC Commissioner Michael Copps. Both are men who believe government should control our speech so that we hear what the government wants us to hear. Way harsh, you say? Just listen to his own words. “Half a trillion dollars…that’s a conservative evaluation of the airwaves that our country lets TV and radio broadcasters use for free. It’s just about the biggest chunk of change our government gives to any private industry.” Got that? He thinks that the air you breathe and the electromagnetic waves that travel through it are the property of the federal government. When we use them without a fee we have accepted welfare. So how much in federal benefits did you receive today when you used your wireless router, spoke on your cordless phone, shouted over your fence to your neighbor, or simply took a breath?

And of couse, something must be done about all that crap you are watching, he tells us. “Too little news, too much baloney passed off as news. Too little quality entertainment, too many people eating bugs on reality TV…Too much brain-numbing national playlists. Too little of America, too much of Wall Street and Madison Avenue.” So, he wants to give broadcasters a full rectal exam every three years, with their licenses renewed only if their programming meets his government-loving tastes. And, did you catch that cute little thing at the end about “Too little of America, too much of Wall Street and Madison Avenue?” In his twisted mind, “America” is the federal government, not the worthless private lives of a supposedly free people.

So, how has a kook like this become so powerful, much less why is he even walking the streets? He is President Bush’s single worst appointment, and it was to fill a Democratic seat on the FCC. If Clinton or Obama win, they will not be bothered to prevent this loyal Democrat from taking the majority’s seat, and he will become our FCC commissioner from hell. And if McCain wins, Copps will not be marginalized by a President who authored the free speech-killing McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. Copps will almost certainly make a grab at regulating the Internet. So, everyone from the far-left to the far-right must now join together to fight the most dangerous man in America. For those seeking unity, you just got it. The two sides will no longer be left vs. right, but the Political Class against the rest of us.

Newsweek’s Robert Samuelson chides his magazine for engaging in a questionable “moral crusade” against global warming. Personally, he believes the problem may not be solvable using available technology. But what particularly concerns him is Newsweek’s characterization of opponents as a “well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry [that] has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change.” And, he resents the way an individual like himself, who has doubts about manmade solutions, is “ridiculed as a fool, a crank or an industry stooge” by his own magazine.

Samuelson is onto something, but he fails to recognize why Newsweek ridicules ideas like his. He is paying the price for deviating from the center-left tilt of a magazine whose current problems are less about global warming than its sunblindness to the harmful effects of its own worldview. The implicit view in Newsweek’s coverage of global warming – that man caused global warming and bad people are keeping us from fixing it – is a classic fit with Left thought. Left ideology includes the implicit belief that Man has unlimited potential to solve all problems (which is where Samuelson wandered off the plantation). And since Man can solve all problems, the Left also implicitly believes that Man is the cause of all problems. All of which leads to an impolite accusation: unless opponents are too ignorant or stupid to understand the problem, they must be benefiting from the problem, which means their opposition is at best selfish, and at worst mean or evil.

So, where does that leave the majority of Americans who, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center, do not believe that manmade global warming is a real problem? Will they continue to read a magazine that not-so-subtly insults them by suggesting they are ignorant, stupid, selfish, mean, or evil? If, like Samuelson says, Newsweek is indeed engaged in a moral crusade on global warming, at least they cannot be accused of acting in their own self-interests.