What if the N.Y. Times just quit?

     That's the proposition Michael Hirschorn throws out in The Atlantic in a rambling, full of fact and supposition, challenging essay. Hirschorn at least plays lip service to the real loss, which would be in reporting and, frankly, gatekeeping. The gatekeeping role so hated by both political wings of America is needed more than ever now, I think.  Who knows how accurate that story on Google News is when I don't know anything about the writer or publication?  I'm reading Indian papers now that go on and on about Pakistani lies. Accurate? Propaganda? I don't know. If I had read them for a year, I'd know whether they were independent or just mouthed a line.

      Anyway, the essay is well worth reading just for sparking your thoughts.

What should I be telling students?

What should journalism professors tell students about the future? According to answers from a variety of journalism professors across the country, the answer varies from "find a new profession" to be versatile and take a long view of journalism.
I come down in the latter camp. While the newspaper industry is foundering, media, in my view, has never had better opportunities for excellent work. I cannot imagine how much better my work would have been if I'd had the tools available now, even when I was an editor at the Journal Sentinel, which, in my view, is just now beginning to scratch the surface of melding print and the Internet.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, maybe newspapers won't be so blue

OK, it's really a feature about a newsstand, but this story in the London Independent about a bookseller's antique newspapers, I think, contains some information that today's press barons could use. Looking at newspapers from a highly-competitive era, one is struck by their focus, drive, and initiative. They didn't sit around bemoaning their competition, they outworked it. They didn't cut features and writers, they added them. They didn't alienate readers by running stories that didn't interest them, they honed their offerings. It sounds like a better plan than any I've seen lately.

Excuses, excuses, excuses

      I got an email from a "regular viewer" asking why I haven't been posting more lately, so I guess I'd better at least warn those few of you who aren't family members that it'll be another week or so before I get back to regularly reviewing what's happening in the media world.  I am part of a team conducting a media workshop in Ahmedabad, India, which is taking tons of time (besides, and don't go all jealous on me, I'm blogging on a regular basis  from India at Steve's Excellent Adventures in India).

      Actually, that gives me a chance to touch on one of the themes that has so disrupted the old media world these days. Two incidents with students let me realize the reach of the new media.  One of the students came up to me today to chuckle over an incident I reported yesterday on the other blog. She said she reads it every day, and that I'm capturing India quite well (OK, she's learned the fine art of sucking up; it still indicates the reach of new media). The second was similar. One of the students is a reporter for the Times of India. He was talking about this blog, which he found by researching me through the Internet. He said he found this blog quite useful. Yes, as I look back at the posts, many of them are America-centric, but a good number aren't, and the world isn't sitting still.

      The Indian students are, almost to a person serious about their journalism. Almost all of them talk about working for newspapers, even as I've been involved in setting up an online version of their school's newspaper. The dream is still alive in Ahmedabad.

The future -- and its dilemma

The San Francisco Bay Guardian Online offers its take on journalism's future. Basically, it says there'll be good journalism in the future -- the Huffington Post is cited as an example -- but the problem is finding a business model to pay for it. Frankly, I agree.

A good example of a new media weak spot

         A thoughtful post on a blog about the future of democracy with the decline in newspapers (and it's skeptical about them) offers a window into what I think is one of the problems with the new media. After two screens of thoughtful opinion, we are dumped into the world "citizen journalist" commentators, virtually none of whom address the points made in the essay and virtually all rife with racism (the commentators immediately attacked the press as pro-Democrat, consistently using an especially ugly racist term to describe our next president).

         The point is that the new media needs to grow up if it's going to be treated as an adult. There is some advantage of removing some of the filters employed by the old media that have, in my opinion, all too often limited its scope.  But unfettered comment, unfortunately, has opened the gates to vitriolic, un-thought-out spewing of opinion based on little and with no attempt to support arguments.

      It reminds me far too often of a person I know who often says "Well, I don't know anything about it [it being the subject of the conversation], but I think . . . ."

The news from India is different than from the U.S.

The reason you're seeing so few posts these days is that I'm in India teaching a backpack journalism workshop at St. Xavier's College. The bad news is that we are having network issues so I'm only getting on line for about 10 minutes a day. The good news is that I am now reading Indian newspapers, which really opens our eyes. Again I'll say that online just doesn't hold a candle to print newspapers, which are much more complete than what I've seen on the Internet.
I am blogging on my experiences (so far most of it on my lack of Internet access). If you're interested, the URL is http://byersinindia.blogspot.com/

What does cutback by Missouri student newspaper mean?

It's worth noting that the Columbia Missourian will cut back to publishing five days a week. The paper is an anomaly among American newspapers in that it's a student newspaper by the University of Missouri that serves as the main local newspaper. I think this cutback is significant more because this is a nonprofit newspaper that is cutting back even as some are suggesting the nonprofit business model might be the way for newspapers to go.

Lawsuit may change news on the web

A company you've never heard of, Gatehouse Media, which operates a string of small newspapers in New England, has launched a lawsuit that, if Gatehouse wins, could have major repercussions. Gatehouse has sued the New York Times Company over links to Gatehouse stories on the Times' Boston Globe website.

It's probably going to lose, but what if Gatehouse wins? The Internet is built today on a framework of linking. Virtually every site -- including this blog -- is little more than news aggregators with links to the actual news sources. What if a judge were to rule those links were illegal? Seems to me that Drudge, the Huffington Post, JSonline, etc. would have to dramatically change their ways of doing business.

Internet grows in influence

With a big jump in 2008, the Internet has overtaken newspapers as a favorite source for news although both still trail television. All this is according to a new Pew Research Center report. Some very interesting data there -- newspaper loyalty climbed (even more among young people) but the Internet climbed more. Both took market share away from television. And the results were for national and international news, not local news where most newspapers are concentrating their efforts.

Should newspapers go the nonprofit route?

Editor & Publisher columnist Joe Mathewson suggests newspapers look at nonprofit models if they really are hurting. He offers a couple of examples. They could also think about employe ownership as a model. Oh, yes. That's what the Milwaukee Journal Co. was back when its newspapers were honored, its radio and television stations on top of the ratings, it never laid off anyone (even during the Great Depression), and its stock price increased every month. In other words, before the current management (how is it still in office?) took the company public a dozen years ago.

Be that as it may, nonprofit might well be a saving business plan. I'd certainly explore it before just shutting the doors as a few publishing companies threaten.

Washington Post, Baltimore Sun to share stories

The Washington Post and Baltimore Sun announced plans to share content, especially Maryland stories and sports. A Post story said: "Exclusive stories will generally not be shared between papers. Also out of bounds are articles about Maryland state government and University of Maryland athletics, both of which are competitive subjects to each paper." This latter gives this story a Marquette tie since the Post writer covering the University of Maryland is Steve Yanda who was the Marquette Tribune's sports editor a year ago.