The end of the Newspapers… an Obituary of sorts
It seems almost daily newspapers in North America are shuttering their doors, in Canada TV Stations are being closed down, so far mostly in smaller towns but how much longer before large markets are being shuttered as well?
In Canada, CanWest, the parent to the National Post and Global TV (as well as Canada.com) appears to be in it’s death throws.
I am a bit torn over the news of the demise of the news media.
First and foremost the news media in the context of TV has long sold out to “headline grabbers” the “slang” “News at 11″ to denote useless crap and non-news is evidence of this.
Meanwhile in Canada (and from what I have read) the newspaper business underwent consolidation which means many smaller newspapers were fed most of their “news” from Headoffice and not sourced locally. Worse though is that most newspapers have turned to rebroadcasters for Wire Services like Reuters etc. Which means the real value of having the printed word and staff resources has gone out of the window. Instead of utilizing the power of a newsroom and staff reporters who have the time to follow up on leads, newspapers have reduced themselves to soap boxes for news bites.
The Internet, with it’s almost instantaneous “broadcasting” ability has not only beaten the newspapers but also the TV news, and where newspapers had the ability to be something else and make a difference they rather “gave in” to the arms race that is the Internet and lost… badly.
Of course this is nothing new. I met over the years people and reporters who still thought newspapers were important because things like Watergate broke in the New York Times and not on a TV station.
But those people missed the point back then and they do miss the point now. Just by it’s nature a newspaper could never compete with real time media like TV and the Internet. Sure, wire services, with people sitting in every remote corner of the world can punch out a news piece, but this is not reporting, nor is it what really is the strength of the newspapers. That is, in deep research and analysis that goes beyond yesterdays news.
The Internet is beating both TV and the Newspapers in the news reporting business. There was an earthquake somewhere? I read about it first in Twitter before it even hits the major websites. I do not know the details but I know it has happened. TV waits for the news hour (or a scroller at the bottom) and Newspapers may or may not get to it tomorrow if they don’t miss the deadline.
I call this post an “obituary of sorts” because even though the Newspapers are only put into their grave now the death has been going on for a long time. When the Newspapers decided to fight TV on “equal ground”, cut their newsroom staff down and turned themselves into a rebroadcaster of wire services they sealed their death.
I wish I could say I will miss the newspapers, but the reality is over the last ten years they have become less and less useful, not because something more superior (e.g. Blogs or the Internet itself) filled their role, but because they gave up. They came to a duel with a sniper and only brought a pocket knife. It wasn’t fair, it isn’t pretty but they are done for.
So no, this is not an obituary on the newspapers, if anything it is an obituary on a well informed public, on the ability for a few people to make a difference. Just imagine for a moment if Watergate would have happened in the 2000s. It would have been published on a blog, by two anonymous guys that nobody knows. It would have been dismissed as some crooks cooking something up. No harm would have come, no inquiry etc.
Just imagine how the future will look like without a respectable organization that really does work for the people. There is a reason why the newspapers once were considered the fourth power… It’s too sad that we were willing to sell one of the foundations of our democracy for a quick buck and quick news…. Just imagine we couldn’t know what Paris Hilton was doing tonight right when she’s doing it.
Yes, the last thing was sarcastic.
Rest In Peace, Fourth Power and News Organizations.
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Tags: Canada, Fourth Power, Media, Musing, National Post, news media, Newspapers, North America, Obituary, Paris Hilton, real time media, Realtime, Reuters, Reuters Group PLC, the New York Times, The New York Times Co, Watergate, wire services