The State of Media Journalism

[quote]dhickey wrote:

I didn’t say that it didn’t. I was addressing a different point- the misconception that people have that the money they pay directly for the paper is where teh majority of the paper’s profits come from. That was it.

This is what you said:

And by the way, for all the retards who commented after the article about newspapers not having circulation numbers, they need to understand that most of the money comes from advertising, not their 50 fuckin cents.

sound familiar? retards who comment on circulations numbers understand advertising money is directly related to circulation numbers.
[/quote]

I have seen many people that do not understand the way the break down works. That is why I said that.

On top of that, I am saying that advertising money began leaving with the internet- certain things that bring lots of money, like classifieds and job advertisements, would have left regardless of circulation just because the world is moving online more.

No shit sherlock. we are not talking about why the right wing fringe is not buying liberal news papers. They never have. The problem is the general public is finding the print media available less and less attractive.

If you think this has nothing to do with political views of the country as a whole being different than that of the media outlets seeing a decline in consumption of their product, than you are an idiot. I don’t know how else to help you.[/quote]

No, I don’t. And I already knew you were an idiot, and I wasn’t trying to help you- I was just arguing for the fuck of it because people like you talk a lot about things you don’t know about.

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
On top of that, I am saying that advertising money began leaving with the internet- certain things that bring lots of money, like classifieds and job advertisements, would have left regardless of circulation just because the world is moving online more.
[/quote]
Christ almighty. All of these things are tied to circulation. If more people looked at the classified adds (circulation) more people would advertise. If less people read the paper (circulation) to find a job or buy a car, less people will advertise there. In the real world it pays to advertise where the buyers are.

Fine. Let try beleivability .vs circulation


exibit A

exibit B

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

OK. So who’s going to provide it?[/quote]

Upstart news companies that don’t have the baggage of the failing one?

Blogs? Anyone who feels like writing?

There is no shortage of people wanting to fill the vacuum, if there be one.

You have it exactly backwards. Advertising dollars are driven by viewership - when the ad numbers are “shitty”, it’s because advertisers are pulling their money out of a dry well.

And when the dollars aren’t there, companies cut staff.

And newspaper management is most likely inept - and that is likely cause of the viewership going down. Compare the sad state of affairs of the NY Times and the rising subscriptions of the Economist.

I realize you glaze over when issues of economics are raised, but just instead think of it as basic cause-and-effect.

Newspapers aren’t going anywhere - the companies that provide newspapers are going somewhere, to be rightfully replaced by companies who can produce better newspapers.

They already can. Nothing is stopping a newspaper from organizing as a non-profit - the government has nothing to do with that.

It can easily be cured if journalists - already an overrated bunch - do their job.

American journalists, by and large, are just not very good at their jobs.

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:

OK. So who’s going to provide it?

Upstart news companies that don’t have the baggage of the failing one?
[/quote]

I would love this to be true but I don’t think it is. NO ONE is getting into the newspaper business- everyone is getting out.

Blogs are crap. The people who write them are mostly shitty at it, and they do no research on their topic- we do it all, then they steal it and cry.

No, you’re right, but only because 1) Everyone thinks they’re intelligent and 2) Everyone thinks they’re a good writer.

Sadly, neither of these is true.

You have it exactly backwards. Advertising dollars are driven by viewership - when the ad numbers are “shitty”, it’s because advertisers are pulling their money out of a dry well.

And when the dollars aren’t there, companies cut staff.
[/quote]

I understand that. Been through it over and over with Dhickey- I never said otherwise. But my original point was that advertising was leaving anyway just because of the nature of the society moving towards online venues.

And ironically, they started cutting staff before any of this shit happened so they could make more money. The quality subsequently suffered… and it’s in a spiral since then.

I know what you’re talking about. But countrywide, I think there’s two papers that buck the trend of declining circulation.

It may be because of the quality of their writing… but at the same time they are telling us to write for a sixth grade education level. They say keep the stories short, put lots of pictures in… basically dumbing it down as far as possible.

I don’t think people like this, but I don’t run the company. I know for a fact that the Economist doesn’t write like that.

You are not thinking in the right model. There aren’t new, upstart companies. There are a few lumbering giants.

And the amount of money it costs to start a paper… people don’t just start them up anymore like they used to, especially knowing that the younger generation doesn’t read them. They’ll start blog, or go twat online or some shit- but they don’t bother with the difficulty that is putting out a print product.

If they fail, no one will replace them.

For some reason I thought they had to be allowed. I remember John Kerry brought it up not long ago, but I didn’t hear where it went (if anywhere.)

[quote]
I don’t want it to get to that point, believe me, and I think this could easily be cured if certain folks in seats of massive power in the industry would wake the fuck up.

It can easily be cured if journalists - already an overrated bunch - do their job.

American journalists, by and large, are just not very good at their jobs.[/quote]

That’s untrue, and another one of your bullshit filled generalizations that you like making when you’re grasping at straws.

American journalists, meaning the people that write hard news day in and day out, are pretty good at their jobs. They get paid LIKE SHIT, way, way less then they people that actually deliver the paper, and truly do it because they love it. How the top ranks of the industry place the stories, who they protect, what they fuck up, and who they tell you to go after, that’s not the fault of the journalist on the street who takes pride in what they do. It is no different than any other job… except, of course, when you have a shitty day and your wife left you and your dog died and your mind is elsewhere, you’ve still got to have a story that 50-500,000 people are going to read and bitch about if you fuck it up. So really, I don’t want to hear it.

For you to make a generalization like that is, well, you’re being a bitter asshole.

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

That’s untrue, and another one of your bullshit filled generalizations that you like making when you’re grasping at straws.[/quote]

Nonsense, and I know because I am the consumer of their end product. If I eat at a restaurant and the food and service stinks, I don’t have any need for the waiter or the chef to come “correct” me on my experience.

You want to be a romantic and defend your Tribe - but American journalism has been in steady decline, and the cause of the decline are the journalists.

Typically, a function of what they produce.

So, essentially, you want to write…you just don’t want what you write to be judged by your readers.

And your whining aside, what profession or job doesn’t fit your woe-is-me scenario? Everyone with a job responsibility has to buck up and get the job done - you aren’t a martyr because someone, somewhere - your customer - judges your work.

It’s called professionalism, and if you want all the rights of one, you have to accept the responsibilities.

[quote]For you to make a generalization like that is, well, you’re being a bitter asshole.
[/quote]

Nice try, I consume journalists’ product all day long, and I read authors from nearly limitless sources. My opinion is informed by that experience. There is nothing “bitter” about it, because it actually disappoints me that the quality of the product isn’t better. This is particularly so because of the importance of journalism in a free society.

A great deal of American journalists - not op-ed writers, as they are judged by a separate measure - simply aren’t very good. If that hurts your feelings, I don’t care.

The better answer is for you to do a better job than they do and not be part of the problem, rather than senselessly defend your ditzy and largely incompetent peers.

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:

That’s untrue, and another one of your bullshit filled generalizations that you like making when you’re grasping at straws.

Nonsense, and I know because I am the consumer of their end product. If I eat at a restaurant and the food and service stinks, I don’t have any need for the waiter or the chef to come “correct” me on my experience.

You want to be a romantic and defend your Tribe - but American journalism has been in steady decline, and the cause of the decline are the journalists.
[/quote]

It’s an opinion. Nothing more. It’s absolutely not the fault of the people writing the stories.

There are many excellent reporters out there, and a good many are just solid at what they do.

The fact that you don’t like it honestly doesn’t mean anything to me. I learned a long time ago to not put much in what you say.

Fuck yourself.

Wrong. I’m saying we don’t get breaks. And I’m not complaining- if I didn’t want it, then I wouldn’t do it. But the fact is that there aren’t many jobs out there where you don’t get to have a shitty day, because 50k people are going to whine and bitch about it.

See above. I don’t mind- I like it. But journalists are people. Nothing more, nothing less. You can’t demand 100 percent perfection from us because it’s impossible, as it is in any job anywhere. There’s bound to be fuckups.

[quote]
For you to make a generalization like that is, well, you’re being a bitter asshole.

Nice try, I consume journalists’ product all day long, and I read authors from nearly limitless sources. My opinion is informed by that experience. There is nothing “bitter” about it, because it actually disappoints me that the quality of the product isn’t better. This is particularly so because of the importance of journalism in a free society.

A great deal of American journalists - not op-ed writers, as they are judged by a separate measure - simply aren’t very good. If that hurts your feelings, I don’t care.

The better answer is for you to do a better job than they do and not be part of the problem, rather than senselessly defend your ditzy and largely incompetent peers.[/quote]

I do a better job than most of them. I’ll guarantee that. But I have seen and met many, many journalists, and they’re not any different then any other job- there are some shitty ones and some great ones, and most fall in between.

For you to say that most journalists are inept and that somehow the field has a monopoly on incompetence is just a simple attack on the media that you hate so much. It’s not based in fact.

What exactly is it that you hate about regular hard news stories? The formula has not changed… well, for a long, long time.

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

And your whining aside, what profession or job doesn’t fit your woe-is-me scenario? Everyone with a job responsibility has to buck up and get the job done - you aren’t a martyr because someone, somewhere - your customer - judges your work.
[/quote]

And by the way- there are few other jobs in this country where you are called out consistently, and in public, while you’re there, for something you wrote.

And I don’t mean called out like I actually screwed something up, but in the way that public officials put you on blast for something they didn’t like, or get called out online by bloggers for something they disagreed with (even though they don’t know any backstory), or called out by idiots in the crowd like you who just hate the media and will bash me regardless of what I write…

There are not many jobs like that. Being a politician is one of them, or in public service in some cases. But not many.

Like I said, I like it- I got a thick skin and don’t particularly care what anyone thinks. However, it is not like many other jobs.

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
A lot of stuff
[/quote]

FightinIrish,

I understand what you meant by your original comment, and basically agree. My original question was an honest one, I wasn’t sure just what you were getting at. Some random thoughts after reading this thread.

On the quality of American Journalists and Americans not reading papers: I think to cast this in some simple “unhappy customer”, “bad business” dynamic is to oversimplify the issue. The reasons why newspaper readership and article quality have gone down I’m sure are a bit more complicated then “quality went down, people went to the internet”. Exactly how everything happened is somewhat of a mute point, because it seems that at the moment what we as a culture need to be concerned about is making sure we get high quality news–from whatever the source. I agree with you that I wouldn’t trust your average blogger, guy on youtube, or average internet idiot to provide me with news. I don’t think though that that means that the internet is not a viable medium for what was the newspaper industry to (largely) transfer into, as they already have started to do.

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

It’s an opinion. Nothing more. It’s absolutely not the fault of the people writing the stories.

There are many excellent reporters out there, and a good many are just solid at what they do.

The fact that you don’t like it honestly doesn’t mean anything to me. I learned a long time ago to not put much in what you say.[/quote]

It has to be the fault of the writer if the writing is bad. You’re started to throw an irrational tantrum.

You think this is a smite on journalists - my point is that there is intense competititon and what they write isn’t going to generate big money. So many media outlets, so many journalists. Function of the market, a function of what they write.

Good Lord - you must do something about this hypersensitivity.

If true, part of the program. And the problem isn’t about “errors” - getting something wrong, for example - it’s about not being objective.

You have a shitty day, go home and write a shitty article that doesn’t ethically cover all sides to the story or you pull punches because you “like” a subject…that has exactly zero to do with your “shitty day”. And you should be called on it.

I actually don’t doubt it - I respect your integrity.

No, it is base in fact - and I think that the problem comes not from being a bad writer so much as the bad journalists don’t understand what their proper role is as as journalist. That, unfortunately, applies to too many journalists, and afflicts both talented ones and mediocre ones.

I don’t hate them - I expect them to be objective and tell the truth, no matter whose ox is gored. I don’t want commentary or analysis, or - what is the new model called? - “accountability journalism”.

I don’t want journalists to attempt to “speak Truth to Power”, I just merely want them to dig and report the Truth Period.

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrot
No, it is base in fact - and I think that the problem comes not from being a bad writer so much as the bad journalists don’t understand what their proper role is as as journalist. That, unfortunately, applies to too many journalists, and afflicts both talented ones and mediocre ones.
[/quote]

There we go. That’s what I was aiming at. It’s a fair point. But remember- the news gathering organization shares a hand in this.

They should be all over the writers to simply cover the beat… unfortunately, they want awards… at whatever cost.

[quote]
What exactly is it that you hate about regular hard news stories? The formula has not changed… well, for a long, long time.

I don’t hate them - I expect them to be objective and tell the truth, no matter whose ox is gored. I don’t want commentary or analysis, or - what is the new model called? - “accountability journalism”.

I don’t want journalists to attempt to “speak Truth to Power”, I just merely want them to dig and report the Truth Period.[/quote]

I agree. And by digging and reporting the truth, they often can speak truth to power. I don’t believe in commentary or analysis unless it’s already stated or understood that it’s going to do be that- it shouldn’t be passed out as hard news.

Maybe I don’t see it because the paper I work for has good reporters. They do a solid job, and that’s what I see.

But then, I also don’t feel that there’s massive problems with the way things are written. I know for a fact it happens, but most of the stories going in are good.

I know you will not agree… that’s your prerogative.

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
dhickey wrote:
FCC Commissioner Circulates Document on �?�¢??The State of Media Journalism�?�¢??
Thursday, July 09, 2009
By Matt Cover

Federal Communications Commission seal (CNSNews.com) �?�¢?? Michael Copps, a commissioner with the Federal Communications Commission and its former acting chairman, has circulated an internal report examining the state of media journalism in America and discussing ways to address issues such as the rise of media conglomerates and the prevalence of opinion journalism.

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=50761

As I read through this I couldn’t help but as myself why the federal gov’t is even involved in this stuff. We need the federal gov’t to support dying media outlets and tell us what good journalism is?

I about lost my wig when I read “behavioral rules” for broadcasters or media outlets. Everything after this in the article had me saying “what the fuck” outloud. Anyone know where this Copps guy lives? I would like to whack him over the head with a granite reproduction of the constitution.

Absolutely agree.

However, the government may one day have to support newspapers or the like in one way or another. They are absolutely essential, and the cuts that the… “Higher Ups”… have been making are crippling the industry.

And I find it hard to believe that anyone in the government truly wants investigative journalism to thrive.
[/quote]

Nope, you (and newspapers) will just go away. There are many people who are connected and have jobs that will fill your void. You are nothing, and the world will go on without you. Enjoy digging ditches you pathetic nobody.