Tuesday, March 31, 2009

The Death Of Real News?

From Griper Blade, one of my new favorite sites, on the existential crisis faced by most newspapers (emphasis mine):
"It is true that the number and variety of publishing platforms is exploding in the Internet age," reads a statement on their site. "But very few of these entities are engaged in original reporting. In short, we face a situation in which sources of opinion are proliferating, but sources of facts on which those opinions are based are shrinking. The former phenomenon is almost certainly, on balance, a societal good; the latter is surely a problem."

That's the problem in a nutshell -- too much opinion, not enough fact. While many are getting their news from online sources, few see the connection between newspapers and real news. A recent poll by the Pew Center for the People and the Press found that only 33% would miss the local daily newspaper "a lot" if it stopped printing. Among those 18-39, that number is only 23%. You assume a lot of those 18-39 year-olds are getting news online, but don't realize how many hard news stories are generated by newspaper reporting. All of these blog posts -- mine included -- rely on original reporting from other sources. The same is true for the vast, vast majority of cable news hours -- information there comes mostly from interviews, not investigation.

What the actual future of real news is depends on a lot of factors and is pretty much impossible to predict. Until we know, buy a damned paper. It's the simplest solution.

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