A couple of weeks ago we talked about Americans’ rising reliance on the web rather than print or TV for their news – which has led many to ponder the logical, if prematurely sentimental question: “What will you miss about newspapers when they disappear?” But while some have already begun eulogizing over the loss of an institution, Seth Godin poses a considered response – what are we really losing and what are we really going to miss?
Godin argues that some sections he doesn’t see disappearing at all – like sports, weather, op-eds, comics, and restaurant and movie reviews – pieces that are all readily available on the web now. And page-long advertisements as well as “woodpulp, printing presses, typesetting machines, delivery trucks, those stands on the street and the newsstand” – Godin contends we’ll probably be fine without. So what’s left? What will we be missing? Godin says:
What’s left is local news, investigative journalism and intelligent coverage of national news. Perhaps 2% of the cost of a typical paper. I worry about the quality of a democracy when the the state government or the local government can do what it wants without intelligent coverage. I worry about the abuse of power when the only thing a corrupt official needs to worry about is the TV news. I worry about the quality of legislation when there isn’t a passionate, unbiased reporter there to explain it to us.
But then I see the in depth stories about the gowns to be worn to the inauguration or the selection of the White House dog and I wonder if newspapers are the most efficient way to do this anyway.
…If we really care about the investigation and the analysis, we’ll pay for it one way or another. Maybe it’s a public good, a non profit function. Maybe a philanthropist puts up money for prizes. Maybe the Woodward and Bernstein of 2017 make so much money from breaking a story that it leads to a whole new generation of journalists.
The reality is that this sort of journalism is relatively cheap (compared to everything else the newspaper had to do in order to bring it to us.) Newspapers took two cents of journalism and wrapped in ninety-eight cents of overhead and distraction. The magic of the web, the reason you should care about this even if you don’t care about the news, is that when the marginal cost of something is free and when the time to deliver it is zero, the economics become magical. It’s like 6 divided by zero. Infinity.
Faulty math metaphors aside, Godin’s argument is thought-provoking. We probably won’t miss most of the bits and bobs we used to turn to newspapers for; now we’ve got wikis, Yelp, Weather widgets, Yahoo! Sports, Adult Swim. But Godin glosses over a crucial point: if newspapers disappear, will long-form, investigative journalism really be able to sustain itself on the public ‘paying for it one way or another’? Will the general public, or the government, be interested in financing tomorrow’s Woodwards and Bernsteins? Can we depend on ourselves to seek out and support quality over quantity and immediacy?
Seth’s Blog: When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?
[image via blackcustard]
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Thanks Christine.
A few things in response:
1. First, I never said I want papers to go away, I merely said that they were going to. Two different things.
2. More important, how much “long form investigative journalism” is there really? When I was growing up in Buffalo, NY, I read the paper every single day and can’t recall a single example. The New York Times has more editors in the lifestyle section than they have reporters doing this sort of work. It’s a tiny drop in a big but leaky bucket.
I guess what I’m saying is, “if this is so important, why aren’t we doing more of it right now? Why is it reserved for the leftover money, the slice of civic responsibility the paper’s reserve for it?”
I heard from a lot of journalists, but none of them could explain why the amount of investigative long form journalism we had ten years ago at the peak of newspapers was the right amount.
I’m bullish on this one. As soon as we make it clear what the reader gets, we’ll get more of it.
January 16th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
“woodpulp, printing presses, typesetting machines, delivery trucks, those stands on the street and the newsstand” – Godin contends we’ll probably be fine without.
———
Sure, as long as you’re not involved in the operation or production of any of those. Insulated pundit types tend to forget about the faceless eaters, out of sight and mind, who make it all possible.
January 16th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
re: “will long-form, investigative journalism really be able to sustain itself on the public ‘paying for it one way or another’?”
I can answer this one: No. It’s the truth. Investigative journalism, or at least what remains of it, is INVESTIGATIVE. It involves freedom-of-information-act requests, careful cultivation of sources, tedious legwork, dumpster diving, hunch following. That’s the nuts & bolts of how it works, folks. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the blogosphere to jump in and fill the void.
I agree with all of the above about ad-padding filler, the whole forests that died for the sake of weekend sections called “Homes” and “Wheels.” Newspapers have dug their own graves, gradually.
I blogged a bit about the potential of micropayments to solve some of this, but in my take the required infrastructure is still a long ways off…
http://glave.com/2008/12/27/send-035-for-this-story/
January 16th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
No way are newspapers going away anytime soon. We’ll miss them too much. I think something that everyone is forgetting here is the experience alone of reading the newspaper.
There’s something nostalgic about it.
The habit of going out at dawn to retrieve the paper at home or from the news stand. The way the paper smells. The way it feels as we fold it over awkwardly on a leisurely Sunday morning, passing on the sections we don’t care for or have read already to family members or strangers. The experience of reading the paper is one that we will soon not dismiss.
Long form, investigative journalism isn’t going anywhere. A lot of the fat could be trimmed as we can obviously offer some features online and – advertising space is cut or moves online.
January 18th, 2009 at 3:37 am