Citation
Meyer, Philip. The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism In the Information Age. Colombia,
Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2004.
Summary
(note: this is only a partial summary as I only read chapters I thought would be relevant)
This book looks at the decline of newspapers from an economic perspective. It emphasizes the business aspect of a newspaper and how accuracy in reporting, credibility and influence are factors of that.
Quotes
“The decay of newspaper journalism creates problems not just for the business but also for society.” (pg 5)
“To make democracy work, citizens need information.”
Review/Analysis
There will always be a market for journalism, because democracy needs journalism to be successful. The people need to be informed. This, however, is not the issue at hand. The issue i’m trying to solve is whether bloggers give just as good information as journalists/reporters do.
As far as credibility goes, Meyer brought up the idea that maybe readers don’t think that credibility lies in how truthful a story is, but instead just how much they like the paper. He calls it “warm-fuziness.” There was a specific incident where the paper was covering a story that was bad news for the town. Because the newspaper was the bearer of bad news, the citizens blamed the paper for being bad. The ethics of the paper didn’t change at all, but people’s perception is. So maybe credibility isn’t such a black and white concept with two categories of “credible” and “not credible.” Instead, audiences use the word “credible” to describe a paper when they like it. Then, maybe just as a blog becomes more likable, it becomes credible. Likewise, perhaps newspapers aren’t losing credibility so much as people just don’t like them anymore.
Another issue regarding newspaper’s failing success is that they don’t always fact-check. Often, it’s more important to a paper to be first, not right. Reporters don’t always fact-check, no matter how big the paper is. No matter what the error, be it grammatical, mathematical or otherwise, has the same effect on credibility–people regard teh paper as less credible if it has more errors.
Many regard editors as the saviors of newspapers because they force the reporters to fact check, prevent libel, and overall make newspapers more credible. However, Leo Bogart conducted a study that concluded that editors are not what determine the successfulness of a paper, but instead pricing, distribution and how the population fluctuated in the city. So are editors powerless? This would mean that all those who say blogs are superior because they don’t have editors would be arguing on a false basis. Newspapers were successful not because of their contents, but because of their distribution. Can this be translated to blogs? Is a blog more popular because of what site it’s featured on?
Newspapers are still a business. They have shareholders they need to keep. So, they have a financial reason to produce a good, sought-after product. This has the potential to keep newspapers honest and truthful, because if they aren’t honest, they’ll lose readers. If they lose readers, they’ll lose business and money. Also, readers expect a certain amount of quality from a paper. If the paper does not perform, people will stop reading. So, again, the newspapers have an incentive to maintain credibility, whereas blogs don’t have to answer to readers/anyone paying them.
Newspapers are not necessarily declining because they are becoming less credible or worse in anyway. As mentioned before, they are a business. It costs money to produce a newspaper. With the creation and boom of the Internet, the newspaper business gained competition. The internet inherently had a hand up because they essentially have no variable costs–they don’t have to use ink and paper to get every paper out. If readers want a hard copy, they have to print it themselves. Now websites are providing the same thing that a newspaper does, except for (basically) free. So the internet is financially forcing newspapers out of business. It doesn’t have to do with credibility–this doesn’t mean that newspapers are less credible or the internet is more trustworthy. However, people will always need information (remember that democracy thing?) so there will always be a market for newspapers…just not necessarily in print.
