The trend is really bad, even for the so-called nationals. (NYT, WSJ, WaPo, USAToday, and perhaps LATimes?) The advertisements dollars are shrinking and, thus, so are the pages. The Journal, for example, is a shell of its former self. Fewer pages = less writers.
And for this trend, you can ‘blame’ the growth in social media (which Murdoch has little/nothing to do with). Advertisers are finding a much bigger bang for their buck putting their ad money into Facebook, Twitter, et al.
Paid home subscriptions barely covered the cost of printing/delivery. The profit in newspapers was in advertising, and that has shifted to online/social media. Now, whether the local/national news can re-capture some of that money shift is even questionable, since the target marketing demo lives on their cell phones. Us boomers, who love to sit with a cuppa joe and read a hardcopy newspaper front-to-back, are cutting back as we go on fixed incomes.
Definitely support the industry by paying for online subscription - if you’re not willing don’t whine when you reach your “free” articles for the month!
A nice stocking stuffer or gift for a young person OR an older person is an online news subscription - students can often get an .edu discount anyway.
I have been an avid newspaper reader since childhood. Our nearest city paper is excellent and I have followed its challenges and accomplishments with great interest; I would miss it if it were gone. Additionally, I have watched a loved one break into the print journalism realm over the last 8 years. It was doable, in part because of familial support through lean years of a non-permanent position, lacking full benefits. This reporter views the field as vital to the community, a career where no two days are the same and a challenge to reach the people where they are while advancing the field in an accountable way. You need to be able to talk to anyone in any situation, cultivate sources, trust, and knowledge bases relevant to your beat and be able to write well to daily deadlines. You can’t be in it for the salary; other industries pay better for these skills.
I think that quality journalism offers much and can help ensure accountability while facilitating involvement in relevant issues. Keeping a good thought for those in the field. They have all endured a lot to get there.
That is correct. I subscribed back when it was the paid-for, afternoon daily. One interesting thing about The Examiner was that when it became free, it had a slightly conservative perspective (at least for San Francisco), then it was sold to a very conservative newspaper group and the newspaper’s content reflected that, and now it’s become a very lefty paper.
A major reason is that newspapers and TV news have lost credibility. A recent example is the “ICE arrests man driving his pregnant wife to the hospital” story. I saw it on TV. I read it online. From the perspective of these news people it was a ‘bad ICE’ versus ‘sad immigrant family’ story. The mother was on TV crying that she’d been left at the gas station and that her husband had not seen the baby.
Now this wasn’t some breaking news story that the public needed to know about that minute. One expects details of those stories to be wrong given the emergent nature of the story. This was a story that could have waited until the full facts were known. A day later it comes out that the man was wanted for murder in Mexico! The whole angle of the story was completely blown up. The headline should have read “ICE captures wanted murderer”. But the news people are biased to not even think that ICE could be doing something good and brave. They are predisposed to think of ICE as the bad guys.
The news outlets get a black eye and people who distrust them get more ammunition for the distrust.
^^The interesting thing about that is that the local nbc news (LA) got it right TWO days ago: 'ICE arrests murder suspect as he and wife…" Thus, NBC national was also accurate two days ago. But the other majors outlets all led with, ‘ICE detains man driving pregnant wife’…yesterday. In other words, the other majors had a full day to see the complete story on nbc news, but purposely chose a headline for thier report that was short of the complete picture.
Another example: last night Dateline (NBC) had a story about the homeless in LA. They almost completely overlooked that most of the homeless, transients, whatever term you prefer, are drug addicts, alcohol addicts or mentally ill. They focused on a a nurse who was working but living in her car.
They didn’t say one word about children who can no longer use a park or a playground because there are needles all over the ground. Or the woman who was stabbed in the foot on the beach at Santa Monica by a needle and now has to go through painful HIV prevention treatment. Some of my neighbors have told me stories, the kind that never get reported widely. One man was approached by a beggar asking for money. The man kindly said “Why don’t you go to the shelter and get help?”. The beggar candidly said “Because they won’t let me shoot up there”.
The point of view of so many news stories is one-sided. People who know what is happening in their neighborhoods know that is not the real story.
Not to belabor the ICE/husband story, but when the man was arrested ICE initially didn’t mention he was wanted for murder, and it looks like the Mexican consulate has not been able to confirm this man is actually wanted on murder charges. It may be that they are looking for his brother. So I don’t think the initial reports were inaccurate at all. This is one of the reasons the media is important, to understand just what happened and shed light on the issue of how this was handled if indeed the charge is groundless. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-detains-joel-arrona-lara-driving-pregnant-wife-to-hospital-wife-and-attorney-claim-mistaken-identity/
We subscribe to our local paper (in the Gannett group) because of the comics and because it’s the only source of local news. Even if it is a shadow of what it was, the New York Times gave up covering the suburbs years ago. I think they are often better than the Times at NYS news as well. We get the paper version of the Times on Fri, Sat and Sun which means we can read it online during the week, but I find I never do. Generally I find newspapers on line pretty clunky. I can never figure out what I’ve missed. I also subscribe to the Washington Post on line - I’d clicked on so many good articles I thought they deserved my money. I’ve been meaning to fork over some dollars to The Guardian as well, as I read a lot of their stuff too. (More of the cultural stuff like book reviews.)
If you think the stories are one sided write to the editors.
US hardcopy circulation is lower today than it was in the 1940’s (when we had a whole lot less residents). Ad revenue from dailies today has declined to about what it was in the mid-80’s.
NY Times story had that information about the outstanding charge in Mexico (and pushback from the man’s lawyer, disputing that the charge exists). I’ll also point out that ICE did not initially say anything about the Mexico charge. They came up with that version of events later and issued a second statement.
But as to your assertion here:
"The whole angle of the story was completely blown up. The headline should have read “ICE captures wanted murderer”. ----
“wanted murderer”? You’ve tried and convicted the guy in the headline. Reputable news organizations just don’t do that. It’s a libel lawsuit waiting to happen.
^^^ So maybe you should become an editor to help out???
We all consume different amounts of news and news sources. One person only reads the daily paper. Another reads a hard copy, 2 online new sources and follows many on social media. They all have different sources and news at hand to shuffle through. As a consumer you need to triage info and wait for more - because with ALL these forms of media now, more info - sometimes key - is likely to come out.
No longer do we have one or two times a day to get news - the morning edition and maybe the evening edition. Now it’s constant, 24/7. It’s available for consumption at all sorts of angles.
Actually, it should have been in the headline. The omission, while not inaccurate, is (purposely?) misleading. But even if not purposely misleading, it gives the appearance of being misleading, and given the political sensitivity of anything with ICE, a Headline Editor from a major news source should have caught it. For example, the LATimes headline clearly noted that man driving “had outstanding warrant”…
In contrast, NPR was more concerned with the C-Section:
“ICE Detains Man Driving His Wife To Hospital For Planned C-Section”
If true, than that becomes a really good article. ICE stops man for no apparent cause while driving wife to hospital. ICE later digs thru files and finds cause.
I look at it a different way, math mom. Newspapers are businesses, and they (should) know their customer. If one reason subscriptions are declining is that their kind of journalism appears to be losing credibility, then the marketing/sales department has work to do. That’s on them, and whatever that they can glean from their customer surveys. (No different than any other declining business.) OTOH, perhaps credibility is not a big selling point with thier continuing customers…
Regardless, letters to to the editor won’t much matter.
If your write a letter to the editor at a small paper, it might be heard (read by an editor). If you write a letter to the editor at a larger paper, you are not likely the only one writing - so by voicing your opinion it is added to the many who may feel the same way as you and collectively, your words could be heard (by an editor).
With that, where one day editors/publishers mostly had those “letters to the editors” (and maybe some irate phone calls to the paper) to gauge public opinion, they now have a HUGE increase in opinions to sort through (or even attempt to sort through) from letters submitted, comments on online articles, FB comments, Twitter reaction- and on and on.
Who is their customer? EVERYONE. And how do you keep everyone happy??
Everyone dismissing all news sources as fake news because the report does not jibe with their world view - that’s just really hurting yourself. Truth is truth, no matter what Giuliani says.
But here’s the thing. Back in the day, pre social media & internet & cellphone video of every breath in every second of the day, there were three TV stations (four if you count public TV) and the local paper for you to get your news from. You mostly saw one version of events, because there was only one source. The national TV news wasn’t writing about the local trial you read about in your local paper; the local paper wasn’t writing a staff story about the vote in congress that day. That’s not great, but unless you lived in a big city, with multiple papers and quality local TV news, it was reality.
But today you have an infinite number of sources, which theoretically means your quality of news dissemination just went up a thousand percent. All of them have their own perspective, however. Some have definite agendas and aren’t shy about it. Some hide their agenda. Some honestly try to be even-handed. They all have a different perspective. That’s just the way it is.
You ever see “Rashomon”? It’s about one event, and how different people watching the same event saw something completely different, each honestly believing they saw what they saw.
Another example - last weekend there was a shooting near me, and my neighborhood FB group lit up with reports. These are people with no ax to grind, reporting what they saw. Discerning what really happened from their reports was IMPOSSIBLE for me. I am glad I’m not a cop or prosecutor trying to figure that all out, because based on social media, I could barely tell who was shot and where. Forget the surrounding circumstances.
If I were a media exec in charge of hiring, I wouldn’t hire a single one of those people: Not one exhibited basic reporting skills. It’s not easy to report and disseminate the news, despite what the keyboard critics want to believe. This doesn’t make errors and omissions OK, but it would behoove people now and then to realize the difficulty.
Anyway. This thread has strayed far afield. I reiterate that the print business is on its deathbed and it’s a stupid career move for anyone just starting out these days.
The print business may be changing . . . ? I throw that out there because of what’s happening in the book publishing business.
Because of electronics there was a huge drop in purchases of books – hard copy. But after that terrifying plunge that’s leveled off somewhat. People are buying books, though not as many, but it’s a steady amount. The industry thinks that the bottom has been reached – give or take a little here and there – because there are things that you can’t do with electronic books that you can do with real hard-copy books.
