I spent my whole adult life earning a living in mainstream media and the last four months working for free as a blogger so I offer myself as something of an expert on what’s going on: Corporate news media still have a long way to fall while the blogosphere has a long way to rise.
Corporate media face unsolvable problems.
Advertisers have fled to new media. Readers, particularly the younger high-consuming audience, has no use for them. Few news executives have any experience working in highly-competitive markets having spent their careers managing virtual monopolies while executives being brought in from competitive industries have no clue about journalism except what they’ve read or seen in corporate news media.
Then there’s the problem of costs. Quite simply, salaries are out of whack with the declining value of the product in the marketplace and eliminating staff further reduces the value of the product. It costs too much to send out a full camera crew. It costs too much for newsprint and delivery.
From my point of view as a newsman, the biggest problem — one that I understand much better now as a blogger — is the form itself is hopelessly broken.
When I started as a cub police reporter, half the papers in the country were going out of business because the industry was unable to compete against TV news. The old guard of reporters and editors were a rough lot, poorly paid and not well educated but they had a nose for news and knew how to get people to talk.They drank a lot and loved being out on the streets chasing stories and when their bosses pissed them off, they could cross the street and work for a competitor.
The new generation, of which I was a part, believed we were joining a noble profession and could earn a decent living doing work of great importance to society. The reality was that a whole new set of rules were being imposed in the name of the unattainable and intellectually dishonest ideal of “objectivity.”
Corporate executives running a monopoly with 30 to 40 percent profit margins had no motivation to ever rush into print or to allow any but the most skilled columnists to write with a strong point of view. Papers became homogenized and pasteurized — in a word boring. Journalists became pretentious and easily manipulated by the armies of PR operatives employed by business and government.
Those days are gone and are never coming back. Many papers will fold. Others will merge or form partnerships that would violate anti-trust laws if it were not for the fact that newspapers and TV news to a lesser extent are obsolete.
Now, look at the blogosphere. Costs are miniscule. Most people blogging earn little or nothing. Bloggers say whatever they want whenever they want to. There’s no bosses. Anyone can do it. The blogosphere is totally democratic, free enterprise at its best — and its worst.
The worst is the lack of time and skill to actually do much reporting. Bloggers live off of what the media produces, what other bloggers produce and what they generate out of their own because of their specific areas of interest.
The best is that there is actually more content and a richer variety of content from more sources — available faster and in real time — than there is in newspapers that are always a day late except for the odd exclusive.
True, the information from bloggers is sometimes dead wrong, usually incomplete and speculative and it’s often hard to separate fact from opinion.
But the bloggers I follow in L.A. work amazingly hard in most cases and are getting better with experience. Their audience is growing along with their reliability. Far more stories are available from bloggers every day on politics and community life in L.A. than the professional media produces.
And bloggers and the people who comment on blogs fight with one another on their values and points of view. There’s a public conversation that is growing stronger and broader day by day.
Take the story of the massive government raid on Leimert Park in South L.A. on Sunday in which the Jamiel Shaw family became victims of harassment because they had a table set up to pass out water and chips while drumming up support for tougher laws on illegal immigrant criminals.
The first report from the Shaw family which I blogged about sounded like an attempt at intimidation by the LAPD and other city officials who have done their best to ignore the groundswell of support for Jamiel’s Law. Many other blogs noted the report.
The next day another blogger reported LAPD officers from the local station were not involved. That was followed by another blogger’s report that it was General Services cops and the City Attorney’s office leading a city-county task force coming down hard on illegal street vendors.
Today, Councilman Bernard Parks whose district includes Leimert Park denied prior knowledge of the raid and demanded a full investigation, an aide told Zuma Dogg.
To the best of my knowledge TV and the newspapers have ignored this story although radio talk show hosts jumped all over it.
So is incomplete information as it happened, information that’s updated and challenged by multiple voices, not better than no information at all?
News in real time affects the course of events and the consciousness of the public. News long after the fact has as much impact as a tree falling in a forest with no one around.
To answer the question I posed at the outset, newspapers will survive in a shrunken form of decreasing importance.
The blogosphere will see consolidations of bloggers and major improvements in quality and credibility in the next few years and revenues will increase. Skilled journalists will earn at least some of their income blogging and reporting on the Internet and have a lot more fun doing it with their own subjective points of view out in the open than they had working in the corporate media environment.
I know I am.
In the good ol’ days Ron mentions, newspapers were considered the public record. Now, that definition takes on a whole new meaning thanks to blogs. True, some might not be filed with accurate reporting, or filled with emotion, or biased but – at least, important issues are quickly brought to the attention of the public. In other words, blogs provide the ablity to spur a healthy debate, encouraging people to take a position and/or learn another perspective. Frankly, I think it is making people think again for themselves – as readers and writers. Instead of being force-fed the same old entertainment based “news” along with headline service. And, blogs are doing something else – they fill the gap that newspapers no longer can or will complete – providing community news via the internet.
And, all of this is just, as the old saying goes, “in the beginning stages.”
In the good ol’ days Ron mentions, newspapers were considered the public record. Now, that definition takes on a whole new meaning thanks to blogs. True, some might not be filed with accurate reporting, or filled with emotion, or biased but – at least, important issues are quickly brought to the attention of the public. In other words, blogs provide the ablity to spur a healthy debate, encouraging people to take a position and/or learn another perspective. Frankly, I think it is making people think again for themselves – as readers and writers. Instead of being force-fed the same old entertainment based “news” along with headline service. And, blogs are doing something else – they fill the gap that newspapers no longer can or will complete – providing community news via the internet.
And, all of this is just, as the old saying goes, “in the beginning stages.”
Why does one have to win at the expense of the other?
Newspapers absolutely need to reinvent themselves. They’ve been horribly slow to adapt to the fact that there are new and more efficient systems for delivering information than the morning paper on your porch.
Blogs are great additions to the public debate. The best ones are often fast and funny, evocative and emotional, insightful and inciteful. The worst are inane, profane, insane… or just plain self indulgently dumb.
I love ‘em all. I love newspapers, and I love blogs. Why do I have to choose one over the other? The choice you’re setting up is Morton’s Fork.
Blogs will never replace an organized newsgathering machine. With all due respect, nobody in their right mind is relying on Zuma Dogg’s reporting. He may be funny and even compelling in a street theater sort of way. He may even break “news” every once in awhile, catching Gavin Newsom plotting politics in Malibu. But he’s not a reporter.
Look at your own “Naked City” reports. How many came from blogs, and how many from newspapers? I looked at the last four or five days and came up with the following: Newspaper links: 12 (LA Times, Daily News, SF Chron). Blog links: 2 (Mayor Sam, witnessla).
Take away the newspapers and news organization sources, and most blogs would shrivel up for lack of information to link to and opine on.
So, again, why do I need to choose one over the other? Can’t we work on optimizing both?
Ron, you obviously were badly muzzled during your years at the Daily News, and now you feel so free out of your cage you’re even quoting zuma dogg as a source. Previous poster is right: look at the number of comment hits the LATimes gets vs. the two blogs you mention — millions vs. a handful, most from the same oddball player wanne-bes or those with a personal gripe. Like Mayor Sam’s Higby himself, who I just read on WitnessLA (one of the two blogs you mention) used to work for Hertzberg, and now has it in for Antonio and anyone at City Hall. Revenge of a woman scorned, political version.
Still, the big difference between these two is Freeman of Witness is apparently a USC prof (not meaning anything near “objective” as you note, curiously adding that that was a pernicious claim resulting in “boring” sameness. Well, if it’s a matter of that and checking your sources vs. just sliming anyone at will for ratings like MayorSam or the ignorant talk show screamers with hours to fill every day (and how often can they rail at Obama, now that Hillary’s out of the picture?), I’ll take the MSM anyday. There’s already a sense of disgust at how these bloggers and talk show screamers are using the simple, tragic Shaws as central figures in a circus of fools to throw accusations this way and that without regard for validity or even decency (“what’s that?”).
Yes, there will be a shakeout — the few people who read these blogs (a miniscule, miniscule % citywide who don’t have a gripe or dog in the fight) will tune out. Kids aren’t reading this when they’re on the net — they’re gaming, watching and listening to video, Yahoo News — which hasn’t sunk to this level for a reason.
Fremon is part-time lecturer at USC, not a professor. Not that that itself has anything to do with whether or not she makes valid arguments or whether she’s intellectually honest or dishonest.
Hey, 7:10 PM, didn’t you once work at a “well-respected east coast newspaper?”
7:10 is incorrect. I never worked for Bob Hertzberg. The information on Witness LA is incorrect and I’ve responded there.
Ron – great points and I agree with all of them.
Well, then it was one of the other regular anon bloggers on Mayor Sam who used to work for Hertzberg — check with Roderick about this from 05, it created a stir then when he was “outed.” Funny how Higby isn’t volunteering this now by way of full disclosure, nor WHO most of his pseud. bloggers are.
Out yourself Anonymous 11:55 p.m.
Your main goal in life seems to be to naysay everything that’s posted on this blog.
Who are you? Whose payroll are you or were you on?
From LA Observed, 9/1/05: “The political blog Mayor Sam is not anonymous any longer. Two of the ring-leaders came out of the closet after the L A Times asked them to confirm or deny that they were the secret bloggers. It turns out one of them, as some had suspected, was a top campaign operative for Bob Hertzberg. Hertzberg denied any connection… Brian Hay…was chief information officer for Hertzberg’s mayoral campaign…As editor of his news digest, he often promoted the Mayor Sam site…They (anon. bloggers) didn’t confine their posts t… To spinning issues and pursuing political agendas. They hid behind anonymity to — sometimes — insult people they have to work with…. They also have tried to intimidate journalists.”
Yea Brian Hay used to write for our blog but he’s been gone for years.
Yes, Brian did work for Bob Hertzberg for some time. In fact the saying around town was that Brian didn’t (expel gas) without permission from Bob.
However the statement was that I worked for Hertzberg which I never did.
Kevin Roderick didn’t even out Brian Hay. Brian Hay did it himself and not until then did Roderick know or write about it. And then he used his blog – as he often does – to get personal retribution against Hay.
But for Christ sake folks – you’re talking about stuff that happened three years ago – get a life!
I don’t know why I’m obligated to reveal the identities of my bloggers. That’s the last thing I would do even though most of them are not really anonymous anyway.
Oh by the way – Roderick on one hand says that Hay was suspected but then acts totally shocked when he finds out that it was Hay when he was having personal correspondence with Hay and was pissed that Hay didn’t tell him he was a Mayor Sam anon-y-blogger.