American journalism is dying. Its survival requires public funds

[Thaddeus]

American journalism is dying. Its survival requires public funds
by @VWPickard in The Guardian

The McClatchy newspaper chain’s recent filing for bankruptcy is one more data point showing that US journalism is dying. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the newspaper industry has lost more than 50% of its employees since 2001. While several big national papers like the New York Times are healthy, more typical are the closures, bankruptcies, and extreme downsizing that increasingly leave cities, towns and rural communities without local news.
McClatchy: newspaper publisher bankruptcy 'a loss for democracy', experts warn
Read more

This carnage has attracted opportunistic pathologies, from hedge funds buying up distressed papers and selling them for parts, to news outlets resorting to increasingly dubious forms of advertising and clickbait. A degraded product gives readers even less reason to support local news.

Meanwhile, little evidence suggests that any new market-driven model can rescue newspapers or sustain the journalism that democracy requires. For many areas across the US, there’s simply no commercial option. The market has failed us.

With market failure, journalism’s survival requires public options. We can glean ideas from our history and from around the world for how best to support the necessary public infrastructure that journalism – and our democracy – needs to survive.

More here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/19/american-journalism-press-publishing-mcclatchy

[Throck]

1. Printed media is vanishing.

I pretty much read everything on line.

[Thaddeus]

2. We all do that

and that is part of the problem: online news doesn't pay

[brush]

5. Outlets like Craigslist, EBay and others spurred the move of newspaper cash cows,...

simple classified ad listings, to online was the beginning of the end for print journalism. Those simple 3-5 line ads generated thousands daily for newspaers. now all that revenue is gone, along with the big display ads of course.

But much of the fault lies with print execs. In the '90s wen the www came about, they never figured out how to monetize their fledgling web sites. A paid Craigslist-model should've been their idea, or the idea of some online techie they hired. They only hired newspaper people though until it was too late. Firewalls were ever going to work.

[Blue_Tires]

3. It's our own fault mostly...

There was a great piece last year about some smalltown newspaper in the northwest closing up and there were these folksy remembrances from I think the mayor, the fire chief and some local business owner (all lifelong town residents) about all the time the newspaper as a resource saved the day for them and they sadly wondered how they would get on in their daily lives without it...

And naturally the piece added this line at the end:

"Neither the mayor, the fire chief, or the bookstore owner had subscribed to the paper..."

[ibegurpard]

4. that's not going to happen

look at the fights over NPR. The right-wing definitely doesn't want unbiased journalism and, to a certain extent, neither does some of the left.
we need to support non-profit journalism endeavors.

[Igel]

8. I can't consider NPR unbiased.

There's an edge to the voice when they interview some people, they're smiling and happy when they interview others. Some interviewees get easier questions and the interviewer will proffer information or suggest answers to help the interviewee, some interviewees are argued with and immediately quoted out of context by an "impartial" commentator aired seconds but recorded hours after the interview.

It's not just (R) versus (D). There's an incessant undercurrent against Biden and for Sanders and Warren on the part of some of the reporters, and the scathing tone when mentioning Bloomberg is amusing.

It's not just the anchor new shows in the a.m. and early p.m. It's a lot of the other programs that air nationally, as well.

[Karadeniz]

6. Does the British govt support the BBC? If so, govt funding doesn't have to equal censorship.

Actually, I've heard that PBS's news quality has gone down since they started taking Koch funding. I think if the govt can endow arts, we should endow media, particularly investigative journalists. Greg Palance (name?) would take funds and no one could tell him what to write.

[RussBLib]

7. goddamit...US billionaires? Hello?

Surely some left-leaning billionaire is willing to part with just a tiny bit of their dough to help to save journalism in this country?

Anyone?