Apocalypse Now
Why wait, says Michael Hirschorn at the Atlantic, describing a post-pulp New York Times/print media industry and advocating an end to toe-dipping.
What would a post-print Times look like? Forced to make a Web-based strategy profitable, a reconstructed Web site could start mixing original reportage with Times-endorsed reporting from other outlets with straight-up aggregation. This would allow The Times to continue to impose its live-from-the-Upper-West-Side brand on the world without having to literally cover every inch of it. In an optimistic scenario, the remaining reporters—now reporters-cum-bloggers, in many cases—could use their considerable savvy to mix their own reporting with that of others, giving us a more integrative, real-time view of the world unencumbered by the inefficiencies of the traditional journalistic form.
Sounds great. Unencumbered by anything resembling accountability, direct knowledge of anything being reported on, and eventually, any actual reporting experience, too. What Hirschorn is describing sounds more like a post-apocalyptic feral scene that would be even more rife with fraud, poorly disguised bias and shoddy reporting, relying on even less reliable sources of information, than what we have now. Starring Green Helmet Guy. It would also go over like Waterworld. Hate the media? Wait till you see what no media is like. None of those powerful freestanding monoliths that everyone loves to hate, just a vast crowd of squeaky-voiced, shallow-pocketed websites, any one of which can be sued into silence or oblivion in minutes. It would end up looking a lot like Russia, I’d guess, speaking of feral post-apocalyptic media-challenged environments.
Let’s say it’s limited to the Times, which is looking at the most immediate crisis and is the proposed guinea pig. NYT minus its print edition and 80 percent of its staff will rapidly become a somewhat beefier, more boring Salon, only not as profitable. It would be a boon for the Washington Post and its website, though, because that’s where everyone who doesn’t live in New York … and a lot who do … would go. It would be great for the Daily News, the New York Post, and Newsday, too. Their newstand and home delivery sales would get a big boost.
Just because the Times hasn’t managed its money very well doesn’t mean pulp can’t still make money during this dread interwebnum, and in fact it remains for the moment the only viable way of maintaining large-scale, in-depth news operations, even if they have to be scaled down and refocused. Instead of going straight to anarchy and hoping the monks can keep civilization alive, I like his Murdoch scenario better. Sell the Gray Lady for pennies on the dollar to someone in who knows how to cut costs while keeping newspapers vital and turning a profit; fire everyone and let them re-apply for their jobs; redesign the newspaper; retrain editors and reporters to use their resources better. Also, get rid of that stupid FCC cross-ownership ban.
The biggest mistake people make in dire times is assuming that their worst fears are predetermined, and giving way to despair. Hirschorn’s nihilistic answer to NYT’s problem, though it appears to cheerily advocate adaption, in fact just embraces annihilation.
In other bad ideas, here’s a guy who wants to bail out the newspaper industry. (You can also mull at that link whether I actually know what I’m talking about. I dunno, maybe, maybe not. Who’d have thought, after all these years of imminent-doom predictions, that my second-string tabloid … lean, mean, still driving the local news agenda on a daily basis and operating in the black … would be financially healthier than its broadsheet rival?)
Welcome Instapundit, Surberistas, etal. Always glad to see you. Come on in. We’re hanging out with a great American war correspondent, listening to some good goatshed-burning rhetoric and mulling martyrdom opportunities and war crimes in Gaza.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:28 pm on Tuesday, January 6, 2009
4 Responses to “Apocalypse Now”
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January 6th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
We will miss the crossword puzzles. As for the rest, I read it because I wanted to know what the enemy is thinking. I don’t think I have learned a fact from them since the Nixon administration.
January 7th, 2009 at 12:55 am
The wedding section was always fun in a naughty, voyeuristic kind of way. I have avoided it for years since I could generally predict what its take on issues was going to be, despite the fact that I could never fathom the depths that it would sink to in order to support its position (for example, McCain had an affair = Obama should be elected). If it dies, I wouldn’t miss it.
January 7th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
[...] Jules Crittenden » Apocalypse Now Sounds great. Unencumbered by anything resembling accountability, direct knowledge of anything being reported on, and eventually, any actual reporting experience, too. What Hirschorn is describing sounds more like a post-apocalyptic feral scene that would be even more rife with fraud, poorly disguised bias and shoddy reporting, relying on even less reliable sources of information, than what we have now. Starring Green Helmet Guy. It would also go over like Waterworld. Hate the media? Wait till you see what no media is like. None of those powerful freestanding monoliths that everyone loves to hate, just a vast crowd of squeaky-voiced, shallow-pocketed websites, any one of which can be sued into silence or oblivion in minutes. It would end up looking a lot like Russia, I’d guess, speaking of feral post-apocalyptic media-challenged environments. [...]
January 7th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
“Unencumbered by anything resembling accountability, direct knowledge of anything being reported on, and eventually, any actual reporting experience, too.”
They’re currently two out of three most of the time, and experienced at being an unaccountable non-expert isn’t too valuable.
Print newspapers will decline as a share of news until they’ settle as a nostalgic niche, like live plays and rotary-dial phones.