It seems as if death knells are being sounded everywhere one turns these days for newspapers. Some of the less thoughtful who see the “MSM” as the enemy clap their hands with glee. Oh well. Those in the newspaper industry are rightfully worried and are doing even more hand-wringing than usual.
The current economic funk is, of course, the major impetus for the discussion of whether newspapers will survive. Papers like other industries have fallen on hard times and some have either folded or have been forced to file for bankruptcy. Some newspaper chains have announced involuntary furloughs for employees while other feel layoffs are the only choice. I know people who are in this very situation.
I feel fortunate to have left newspapers as a full-time occupation as I did three years ago. However, I don’t have a real feel for how the economic upset will affect my freelance career because there really hasn’t been a situation such as we are in to give an accurate comparison. I say that because, even though the print industry has weathered recessions and even depressions before, they did not have to contend with such a diverse media which includes 24-hour cable and the Internet.
Although newspapers are in a very precarious state at the moment I still believe it is too early to write its obituary. Here is why.
The majority of news gathering in the U.S. today comes from newspapers. You can talk all you want to about how outmoded is the MSM. But the fact remains that TV, radio and Internet still mostly depend on newspapers for original reporting. Something that really used to tick me off when I worked for newspapers was hearing a TV station claiming credit for a story that I had broken. Imagine that you wrote a beautiful song or painted a wonderful painting and all of a sudden the performance or picture shows up under someone else’s name. Wouldn’t it hack you off just a bit for another person to take credit for something that you spent time on as well as expending intellectual labor? I also don’t remember how many times I listened to a local radio station basically read what I had written verbatim without even acknowledging where the story originated. But isn’t that plagiarism one might ask? Why yes, and your point is? They didn’t care.
I suppose those who see the newspaper as a relic of the past assume that even if papers in some locales go away for awhile that they will not return. I predict that will happen for some papers that disappear but not all. Further, I feel the newspaper will not completely vanish even though the business models are going to require change.
If a person has a job or other means to fall back on and has an interest in journalism such as myself, it could be an interesting time ahead. For others, it is going to be hell and may result in people who loved their jobs having to give them up in order to survive. That’s a tough road to sled, for sure. I have been without jobs before and have been very impoverished. But it isn’t the end of the world. And I feel that a year or two years from now, how ever long this funk lasts, people will still be looking in a newspaper to get their news and to find jobs in the classifieds.