Why mainstream journalism is in pain

I have mixed feelings about this, but something I do fear is the compartmentalization of ideology. That is, conservatives will now get their news from only conservative sources, and liberals from liberal sources. I am glad that there are now alternatives out there to the MSM, and think in principal that a diverse choice of media outlets is a good thing. But as people use online sources more and more, I don't think they will choose to be exposed to ideas and even facts that differ from their own point of view.
I have a friend who is a very intelligent man. He's younger than me, in his late 20's. We share a conservative political philosophy, and have many things in common. He is, even more than me, an Internet fanatic. He likes to read blogs, and he gets his news from the well-known conservative websites and forums. He also is an avid listener to talk radio.
But sometimes when I talk to him, I get the impression that he lives in a conservative bubble. He doesn't watch TV news except for Fox, he doesn't listen to regular news radio (i.e. NPR), and his view of the MSM sources is that they are completely untrustworthy. While I agree that the MSM is biased, they are still professionals, and often have something important to say. Also, it's not bad to understand different ways of looking at the world. The MSM has its filter, but so does conservative talk radio.
When I discuss almost any issue with him, I can predict beforehand how he will answer. He has already imbibed the conservative viewpoint, he already knows how to answer any contradicting evidence. And it never dawns on him that liberals or Democrats might be right about something. And he never can acknowledge that some issues aren't black and white, and that some things cannot be decided on ideological lines alone.
It's very odd, because I agree with him about most things. But I don't see an openness to the real world that's out there. I'm not patting myself on the back as someone who's more openminded, but I do notice that many conservatives have become just like the liberals they disdain - closed, narrow, and presumptuous. (And I know very well that many liberals do not fit that stereotype.)
As the newspapers decline, so does the common source of information. So people will become more like my friend, choosing their own sources which fit their pre-formed perspective. I'm not sure that this kind of fragmentation is a good thing.
Sorry this is so long...

I remember as a kid that Kansas City was served by two newspapers in the same company: a morning and an afternoon paper. The Kansas City Times was waiting in the driveway every morning, the Kansas City Star was thrown sometime before school let out. I barely remember the KC Times, but I don't remember exactly when it stopped. Sometime in the early 1980's, I suppose-- but long before the internet and yet still before network TV news became such a floundering joke.

Blaming the internet does not answer the whole question.

Furthermore, if the interet was the sole reason, then magazine publication would be down, too.

While "generalist" magazines are loosing favor, overall magazine publication is booming. There are audiences for specialty topics from photography, economics, bow hunting, dachshunds (seriously, a monthly on the same breed of dog? What's changed since last month?), cooking, religion, business management... the list goes on and on. And most specialty topics would probably be better served in an internet format than the expense of producing a magazine... yet magazine publication is as strong as ever.

No, I think your secondary premise is the most compelling: people just don't care about the news, at least not enough to read more than a short story or headline.

We take a newspaper for a few months. I do the crossword puzzle, my wife likes to look for people knows in the Sunday wedding/engagement announcements. We both like the local news and the KC Star has a pretty good sports section. But we only take the paper when they offer the "introduction" rates and drop it when the 6-month discount runs out. A crossword puzzle and Royals baseball converage just isn't a big enough draw for me to pay more than a pittance.

Doesn't ad revenue really pay for a paper? I always understood that the subsciption price just basically paid for delivery. Well, my subscription price is too high. So they lose readers, and ad revenues fall. What a dirty, viscious circle.

FWIW, my issues with newspapers have to do with how unwieldy most are. I subscribed to our major local daily for a while, but it was so huge. Took up half the table, fell all over the place, circulars making a mess, etc etc. While I get a lot of news online, I DO subscribe to a few print things, such as Newsweek, First Things and (my guilty little pleasure) the Limbaugh Letter. I can easily open these on the table and read them over coffee and breakfast, or (*ahem*) when I'm doing my morning business, or easily curl up with them on the sofa.

When I was in Europe, certain newspapers and upstart competitors were issuing daily editions in a magazine-size format (while it remained newsprint). I loved it, bought a paper every day at the train station, read it on the commute and later at home.

I can't imagine this is a major reason for the demise of traditional newspapers, but it's a big reason I personally don't have any interest in subscribing.

I subscribed to our major local daily for a while, but it was so huge. Took up half the table, fell all over the place, circulars making a mess, etc etc.

...

I can't imagine this is a major reason for the demise of traditional newspapers, but it's a big reason I personally don't have any interest in subscribing.

The whole mess/incovenience of a big pile of newpaper drives me nuts as well. It didn't always annoy me so much, but I can't stand it now. I bet it's probably a bigger factor than you think, if often left unstated.

How interesting, Ireneaus, jaybird and Will-- I've never put it to words like that, but I don't like the format, either. I don't like the grocery bags stuffed full of papers, I don't like that it's not easy to take to work and back home, I don't like that it turns my fingers black. I don't like the waste of all that paper, the responsibility to recycle all that paper, and the realization that none of it recycles very well.

That would have never occured to me, but now that you say it... I hate having a newspaper. Oh, I like to read a newspaper. But I hate having to deal with the consequences.

I wonder if we're representative of a lot of people, or if it's concentrated to Crunchy minded people.

I think there is still room in my life for a decent newspaper. For what its worth, I'd prefer to get my news from a paper but it's simply unavailable. I avoid television news assiduously and use the net for national/international news but I have no useful/comprehensive source for local news. My hometown newspaper is the abysmal Springfield Daily Republican which I read only if someone has abandoned a copy in the break room and I'm hard up. The national/international news is always stale wire copy: so much for section A.

The Op/Ed page features predictable unsigned editorials in keeping with the usual ideological biases/sensibilities, syndicated columnists (Dowd, Will, etc.), and letters to the editor written by the very unstable.

Local news is usually limited to crime and fires and in any event is poorly written and provides a bare minimum of detail.

Clearly this paper suffers from all three symptoms: idealogical bias, bean counting, and internet competition. Its potential audience (i.e. me) is not necessarily indifferent. Only this past Sunday did I lament to my wife about the absence of a decent paper to peruse as we languished in bed. N.B. I cancelled my Wall Street Journal subscription because 95% of the content was irrelevant to me albeit well-written.

I would gladly subscribe to the Daily Republican under the following circumstances: it relegate national/international news to the scant few column inches it reserves for town meetings, drop the syndicated op-ed columns and limit op-ed commentary to local issues thoughtfully considered from all sides, print only letters to the editor by those with a command of the english language and are currently taking their medication, include more local food and dining, include more local arts, include more local issues from all the surrounding towns, and improve state-level reporting and coverage (this is especially imprtant given our Boston-centric legislature). In other words, offer local news more substantive than the results of the last Kiwanis meeting. This is a niche not being served on the net and one particularly suited to a local/regional newspaper.

gjoe: "I wonder if we're representative of a lot of people, or if it's concentrated to Crunchy minded people."

I didn't even think about it in crunchy terms until you mentioned it. (I'm not much of an environmentalist.) But yeah, there are issues with paper, recycling (which takes energy itself), etc.

I have to agree with be real's comment. I think that as time progresses, geography is mattering less and people are self-segregating based on their highest priorities, mainly material but also ideological and religious. Geography is an annoying hindrance to us now; it forces people to be together and care about each other when they'd rather not, all else being equal. Local newspapers and local news stations are probably feeling the effect. Why spend your time hearing or reading about local situations and local people that you don't care about, when you can read about stuff you do care about from your own particular favorite news source?

Tom Jefferson, for one, would completely agree with you -- he went on and on about the necessity for an informed and educated citizenry, if democracy was to succeed, and explicitly connected "informed" to the a vigorous free press.

But to say newspapers are losing readers because of a liberal bias is a supposition not supported by fact, at least in California. By that theory, very conservative papers (such as the San Diego Union-Tribune) or conservative papers (such as the Ventura County Star) should be doing better than liberal papers (such as the Los Angeles Times or the San Francisco Chronicle). But they're not. All these papers are taking it in the shorts, bigtime. All have had to lay off dozens of staffers.

I think the Craigslist theory is much more to the point.

As I said the last time this question came up, I subscribe to and read the print version of the Washington Post and the New York Times every day. I don't watch television, and the only online political site I visit is this one. (I'm definitely not representative of today's media consumer!)

I should say that I'm very impressed by the quality of the comments on this thread--they're a lot of fun to read. Be real, I especially enjoyed your comment.

What Rod said about the classifieds rings true with me. Now that all 3 of my kids are in school, I've been looking for some part-time work. My field has always been wide open with lots of ads in the paper. I'd look to the classifieds and wonder what happened to all of the jobs. Finally, I went online to a couple of job finding sites, and there they were.

I don't see Rod blaming the customer for not buying the papers. He's right. Many Americans don't care to stay informed. It drives me crazy. But it's possible to stay informed without ever reading a paper or magazine. My husband listens to the news on the radio coming to and from work. He might glance at our paper, but usually, it's only to find the crossword puzzle.

I agree with everyone who hates the idea of people reading only info from liberal or conservative news and opinion sources. People start believing and thinking in really strange ways. It's like something grabs hold of their brain and leaves them stupid.

My paper's(Philadelphia Inquirer) OK. It was bought by a conservative businessman a couple of years back. They've added some conservatives to the opinion page, but the editorial section seems to be pretty balanced. They've only done one thing that makes me totally crazy. They used to publish columns by Dick Polman, a liberal political columnist, on a daily basis. I didn't care that they cut his columns back, but now they publish part of his column and tell you that you can finish reading it online. Isn't that crazy????? Buy a subscription to the paper and they tell you to read something online!

The Doxieman blog knows all and sees all.

And generally agrees with Rod, even if Mr. CC is a couple of weeks late on the uptake, LOL! (HTTP://)

http://community.beliefnet.com/blogs/5720

M_David--almost.
I do not subscribe to a local newspaper because A). I can if I want read it at the local coffee house I frequently frequent. B). It has a definate libral bias and a bent for getting local things wrong. C). I can get more accrate and detailed news from my computer when I chose (thus I have more time to mull over what I read and continue to dig if I so desire). I have a college education. I home school my senior in high school (and my two year old) but not my freshman or eight grader. I am quite interested in politics and a variety of social issues. My son has to write a weekly paper picking one issue and two separate candidates, discuss their views on the issue and his own. He does much of his research on line and we are taping all the debates and town hall meetings we can. He will be a much more informed voter than I was when I first cast a ballot.
Given all the different options maybe we need another poll--lol.

There is a relationship and an accountability to small town papers. In a community, you know the reporters and the editor and the ad staff and the workers, and they know you. It is part and parcel of the community. My Dad, who recently passed away far too young, LOVED his job as a small-town newspaper editor. He enjoyed the perks of his minor celebrity status of course, everyone knew who he was at restaurants and businesses nearby. But he also saw his position as something of a public service, and he took objectivity seriously.

I have seen him invite the door-to-door Mormon missionaries inside for hot cocoa, and about twenty minutes in the conversation, he would be asking them if they knew that as an established religious congregation they could get two free advertisements for their services and events per month. Apparently, they'd not been extended the opportunity or information in the past.

Similarly, there were times when I was a child when we were under orders to let the answering machine screen calls and to not answer the door because he made a particularly scathing editorial comment or two about this City Council decision, or that School Board member. He won some enemies on the way, but the truth was what was important. In a community, a newsman keeps leaders honest. And it works both ways.

The job pays next to nothing, and demands everything. Deadlines he'd be at work at 0400. He never did recover from the workaholic habits he'd picked up in the Army. The only way to get a promotion is for someone to retire, or to move to another town - newspapers are cutting staff left and right.

I think the reasons for this have been made clear. I just wanted to point out the costs: blogs are great. But they are not part of a flesh-and-blood community. The relationships are voluntary and anonymous. A blogger or a big city news conglomerate editor is not the same as a flesh-and-blood newsman with a family who shops at your store, or attends your church, or has kids enrolled at your kids' school. In a community you have to communicate and deal with each other through mistakes and letting each other down and wronging each other. Because all of that is inevitable, we are human beings.

I hope that a small-town journalism survives, even if it can no longer be profitable and even if it migrates online. It may have to become a volunteer service done by kids doing community service and retired seniors, but I hope it continues in spite of it all. Certain city council members and business leaders will always have to be kept accountable, and the hard labor of charity workers deserves to be recognized, and every community gathering religious or otherwise should be posted somewhere where everyone can see it. To say nothing of the local softball leagues and county fairs. If not, then we further withdraw into our individualistic shells, facing outsiders with fear and incomprehension.

"Beyond whether or not people like me will continue to be employed, there's the question of: what kind of society and polity will we have when most people don't care about serious news, and prefer instead to focus on sports and celebrities?"

We've been seeing that kind of society since about 1982, Rod. Most mainstream papers jumped on the 'sports and celebrities' bandwagon, and few provide more than a section or two of hard news and commentary even in the Sunday paper; the rest of the paper is fluff, and predictable, monotonous fluff at that (Parade Magazine, anyone? Uggh.)

I like to call it the "USA Today" effect.

If you want really detailed, well researched info you read periodicals/journals. I read a mix of left wing journals such as Nature, Science, Scientific American, The Economist and O bunch of medical journals. I read The National Review and American spetator for right wing views. Newspapers just dont go into the depth to match these sources.

If I just want to know what the latest news is I go online or (ugh) go to TV for a bit. Fox and CNN are awful. My wife likes Scarborough in the morning and from what little I have seen he may be the only real Christian on TV and is not nearly as shrill as other news guys but its rare that Im home in the morning.

I miss reading the newspaper for its routine but it just doesnt fill any specific role very well. Plus, many of the local writers are just awful.

Steve

The Man From K Street, Concerns about the "compartmentalization of ideology"? Wow, you sure would have hated living anytime before the Second World War.

Great point, K.

M.Z., Blogs are really like a giant wire service.

Another great point.

Grumpy, I decided the price of the house organ of Reform Jewish liberalism was too high

Ouch.

Rod, why do you think the hard news hole (journo jargon for "space between the ads") shrinks all the time, but fashion, advice, sports, etc., takes up that space?

Again, merely the effect of family decline. It wasn't too bad the first decade or two of liberal cultural hegemony, but it's we are entering free fall.

Of course, we have the usual chorus of "it's always been this bad!" and "that's what everyone said about Rock and Roll!" and "the kids are alright!" and "nontraditional families are just as good!" to make us feel better as the culture implodes. Heck, why not just make the entire paper sports and entertainment.

Rod, it is unlikely you will have a real liberal bias in news organizations run by corporations - and indeed there isn't one. Those like myself, who support Edwards, have seen him systematically excluded from coverage and debates by news organizations, despite garnering a solid 15-18% of the vote in Iowa and NH. This is due, I believe, (1) to the fact that he muddles an otherwise convenient "2-person horserace" story on Dem side, and (2) antipathy or discomfort to his progressive ideas.

These same organizations continue to heap coverage on people who have gotten many few votes, like Giuliani, Huckabee and of course Paul.

btw, the word for the technological phenomenon you describe is "disintermediation." by doing their jobs badly, the traditional news organizations are losing (and deserve to lose) what was formerly a captive audience.

Dawnie

I still read the newpaper- but not as much as I used to and now it's more out of habit than anything else, and I don't feel like I have to read it like I used to. The main problem is- I don't trust the news. For one thing, I realize now that I am being fed what someone has determined is newsworthy and what isn't. For another thing, as someone was saying just the another night on Beck's tv show, we have all had the experience of reading a story in the paper that we actually know something about, and seeing how it is rife with inaccuracies.

The way this bias plays out is less within individual stories, and more in the kinds of stories deemed worthy of coverage.

Ah, yes. The whole 'liberal media bias' got a little hard to claim, what with the media repeating Administration press releases word for word.

So it's now, instead of arguing the POV is liberal, it's 'The media selects liberal stories'. Which is a very interesting concept...what, exactly, makes a story, as opposed to how it is covered, 'liberal'? (Besides the obvious coverage of stories about politics.)

Rod,

Maybe I misunderstood your meaning by the slam at the readership.

I still maintain that there are significantly better ways to be an informed citizen than by reading daily papers.

We stopped subscribing this fall due to financial constraints and the only fallout is feeling less stressed. The porch is not a fire hazard prior to the every-other-week recycling schedule, and I am not a wreck about following every development in every story. Somehow we manage to remain aware of the big issues.

be real:

Funny, this very blog is part of my open-mindedness. I am a liberal atheist, who grew up Presbyterian in a completely half-assed way. Catholicism is as remote and perplexing to me
as is Confuciansim.

That's why reading the commenters here is more than half the education. It's a shock, a good one. I could never watch Fox news, though. Such gutter-tripe, arrogant, know-nothing BS. Rush, a joke.

But the web. Aha! Eunomia, James Joyner, this site - there's some quality conservative stuff out there.

But yes, there are enough media options today to succumb to self-segregation.

I subscribe to the News, doing my part to keep Rod employed. ; > )

Life is faster these days and it isn't going to slow down. We get the News for me mostly. Even though my wife does the puzzles and reads metro and guide sections.

The sad thing is I seriously considered canceling the subscription while back because the delivery started showing up too late for me to read the paper when doing my regularity thing in the morning. That's the only time in my day free to enjoy the newspaper. Things are back to normal now and we're back on schedule, regular as regular can be.

One has to wonder when a thirty to forty something couple with a couple of kids could allocate quality time to enjoy a newspaper. If they did have that time allowed for newspapering one has to wonder what other activity would suffer.

I don't see things getting better for newspapers. Not because newspapers or newspaper people are bad or inefficient in any way. It's something beyond them, momentum, progress, whatever. They had a place because they covered a large area of interests. There was as many reasons to buy one as there were people to buy them. Now each of those interests are being covered better faster with entities that specialize.

It's sad. But I don't see the trend changing. In fact I see the rate of demise escalating.

Hi LeeAnn!

I am also in the Seattle area ( actually in Seattle), and subscribe to the quite left-leaning Post-Intelligencer for a few reasons. First off, its dirt-cheap, there is a Pulitzer-price winning editorial cartoonist (Horsey), and it has the NYT crossword. I also find the newspaper alot more easier to read with my morning coffee and scrambling toddler. Plus, there is something to be said about a 'bounded' news source vs. endless clicking and scrolling on the net.

"we have all had the experience of reading a story in the paper that we actually know something about, and seeing how it is rife with inaccuracies." (said thomas tucker)

That's a good point. I have heard this from many professionals, and have experienced it myself.
In my immediate family there is a psychologist, a musician, a public school teacher, an accountant, and a jobless "New Ager." Every single one of them has mentioned how bothered they are when the news media focuses on some event or controversy within their own expertise. It just seems like journalists don't know all that much, and aren't willing to dig beyond a surface level. They get some very important things wrong, and once you see through their facade, it's hard to take them seriously.
When I was in law school, we paid close attention to some major Supreme Court cases that came out. Knowing those cases from an insider's perspective, even as a student, it was tremendously frustrating and disillusioning to watch the mainstream press report on those cases. They got some very important things wrong, and their analyses were completely misinformed. Even reputable news services gave an impression of those cases that was misleading or superficial at best. I realize that the legal world can be complicated and that newspapers and TV journalists are writing for a general audience. But they should still be able to get the basics right.
So where do I turn for legal analysis? The legal blogs.

I think the successful newspapers will be the ones to transition to on-line formats and ways of earning money through that. Most papers have an on-line presence and you can read their stories on-lines as well.

Myself, early 90s I read the Kansas City Star when I lived there, faithfully every morning. My wife complained I spent too much time with it, and I did tend to take about two to three hours to read it. I had a hard time putting it down until I had gone through the whole thing and read any and all articles of interest to me. After all, I would be wasting my money otherwise!

Once we moved away from Kansas City, I stopped getting the paper and didn't really pick it back up. It really wasn't until I moved to Austin that I signed up for the Austin-American Statesman. And that, really only to get the TV guide. I might, when I had time, glance at the headlines to see what of interest was there. But I felt guilty for all the waste of paper. All that paper and printing and labor. And the papers would pile up (pre-recyling in Austin) and I either threw them away or stored them somewhere (I still have some of the Kansas City papers, like when their morning and evening additions merged and they put out a paper showing headlines through the history of the closing paper...fascinating really to read how something like the attack on Pearl Harbor was reported at the time).

Now, I can do a search and get up to the minute news articles written sometimes just minutes ago. By the time the newspaper hits my doorstep in the morning, the latest news is hours old. And I can read it when I have the time and I don't feel like I'm wasting anything to do it, a little electricity and time. It's simply a more efficient delivery method for news, and I can get a wider perspective on it, by reading different newspaper's takes on an event. Not to mention what bloggers and others are saying about it.

Even for those who read and want to keep up with events, the print version seems like a waste of time and resources, not to mention costing me more money to get it.

As a writer of fiction, I'm dealing with this to a lesser degree as well. The publishing industry is changing, fewer people are reading, the the technology for going totally electronic with books keeps pushing upon us. Meanwhile, the technology is allowing more people to crank out books, whether they can write or not. I'm still trying to discern where all that is going, but I think we are not too far behind newspapers in that regard.

Getting back to the business model...

Ask yourself this: If you ordered a hamburger in a restaurant and were served horse meat, would you return there a second time?

First and foremost, any business that recklessly squanders the trust of their customers is not going to thrive. Newspapers' "suits" are every bit to blame on their own demise, by allowing laziness, dishonesty and fraud to fester, unchecked, in their boardrooms (with inflated circulation numbers) and newsrooms (with fabulists, plagiarists and every form of delusional low life, destined to "change the world" with narcissism as the key ingredient).

Secondly, any business that offends the sensibilities of their customers will be forced to step back and re-group. Witness the flack suffered by the Dallas Morning News over the Texan of the Year dust-up. [For the record, I thought Mr.Dreher's TOY essay was beautiful and sublimely nuanced - unfortunately, the message lost on many, many readers - the paying customers. As a non-resident of Texas, my opinion on that editorial decision ultimately doesn't matter.]

Nationally, we're witnessing some backpedaling on the part of certain traditionally reliable major newspapers - with the trend moving toward printing high profile conservatives as opinion mongers.

Will it be enough to stop the hemorrhage of customers? I guess Wall Street will let us know...

"Whether you're liberal, conservative, or somewhere in between, I find it hard to believe that thoughtful, intellectually engaged people cheer the demise of newspapers." Rod

Love of one's culture, and wish to preserve it for one's children, is so strong that Conservatives would love to be able to cheer the demise of the horribly biased NYT, LAT, Boston Globe, etc. It's not just the stories selected, it's also the dishonest way major stories (that have to be published), like the war and Katrina, are presented.

Editorials also are biased and therefore dishonest. Your own papers's Dec. 27, 07 editorial, "Science and Faith", was as biased an editorial as I have ever seen. I was embarrassed for you, because you are more fair and balanced than most. The DMN's editorial policy is almost as anti-Second Amendment, anti-Iraq war, etc., as any paper in the country.

And if there were any major Conservative newspapers (The Washington Times?), liberals would be just as quick to cheer their demise as well; just as they dream of silencing talk radio. First Amendment, anyone?

If I am replicating anything above (which I have not yet read), I apologize.

BTW, maybe newspapers eventually will revert back to their roots--local, hard news, put out by public-spirited folks with fairness and ink in their blood.

jaybird Seriously? Newspapers are in trouble because of "family decline"?

What are you talking about? I said newpapers had no need for hard news due to family decline. Heck, they probably make more money this way. Do you just lie for fun?

But I know you can't read an m_david post without a knee-jerk liberal reflex to try and slander. It's the jaybird way. You and Daniel and she-who-will-not-be-named make a quite a team, trying hard to take as much out of context as you can. Why do libs have to be so intellectually dishonest?

It is a strange state of affairs, but large consuming countries hold the economic whip-hand. China's economy is hugely dependent upon the goodwill of US consumers, for example.

Of course we must not make too much of economic co-dependency. Prior to WW1 Germany and the UK were each other's biggest trading partners.

So it's now, instead of arguing the POV is liberal, it's 'The media selects liberal stories'. Which is a very interesting concept...what, exactly, makes a story, as opposed to how it is covered, 'liberal'? (Besides the obvious coverage of stories about politics.)

That's easy. It has to do with what kinds of stories merit attention. It's why it's rare to find stories in the MSM that explore in any critical detail the beliefs of American Muslims; in my judgment, the MSM have decided that their role is to be therapeutic in this matter, and to protect US Muslims from criticism by refusing to delve into stories with a heavy theological content that would (and should) interest them if it involved Christianity. Remember my story from the other day, when I ran into a friend who works for another media outlet in Dallas. He's a good guy, and, I'm pretty sure, a liberal, and he said his first response to reading my column the other day about the alleged honor killings in Dallas was, "Why does Rod have to make life hard for the Muslims?" And then he got into the actual content of the column, and said it was really good and enlightening. In my view, far too many journalists never make it past the instinctive reflex not to criticize a non-Western religious minority.

This is human nature. If the MSM were conservative, chances are you'd find the same bias at work, only it would show itself differently. In January 2002, I wrote my first cover story for National Review on the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal, which had just broken open in Boston. I learned shortly thereafter that a very prominent conservative commentator who is also Catholic was telling people that the fact that NR put that on its cover gave conservatives permission to talk publicly and critically about the scandal. The point was that on the Right, quite a few journalists and commentators felt naturally protective of the Catholic Church, because the Church tends to get beaten up a lot in the public square for its conservative stances on sexual matters and doctrine. We on the Right ought to have been writing more critically about the Catholic Church on the sex abuse and disorder front a lot earlier, but we had our own instinctive code of political correctness. It wasn't like anybody said, "OK, let's all agree not to write about the Catholic Church's problems." It's just something that many conservatives feel, or felt, instinctively.

Because liberals totally dominate MSM newsrooms, there are some stories they're simply not going to have an instinctive feel for, or will shy away from because the story hits them the wrong way. And again, if conservatives were present in newsrooms to the extent that liberals are, you'd see the bias going the other way -- and they'd be just as unconscious of it in many cases, because they'd so rarely run up against anyone who didn't share their point of view. There was that great Baruch College study from a few years back that demonstrated that US newsrooms did a number of stories on the rise of the Religious Right within the GOP, but totally missed the parallel rise of the Secular Left within the Democratic Party. Why? Because, theorized the study's authors, newsrooms, being pretty secular and liberal, saw secular liberalism as normative. That is, they missed what was happening among the Democrats because they thought that's the way the world normally works.

Why do libs have to be so intellectually dishonest?

Family decline, duh. Pay attention.

Editorials are SUPPOSED to be opinion, and therefore biased towards a point of view. It's the same page that political cartoons show up, which are also SUPPOSED to be biased.

Oo, I missed a couple of gems in here. Yay, family decline! It'll soon stop everyone from reading "The Washington Times," a conservative newspaper owned by Our Heavenly Parent, Sun Myung Moon. And "She-who-will-not-be-named"? Oh, I DO hope that's me, not soon-to-be Madam President HILLARY CLINTON. Bwahahahaha . . . . Not that it matters anyway, because the Chinese, whose IQs are way higher than yours and mine, will soon be ruling the earth, right?

Seriously, AnotherBeliever, that was a lovely vignette of your father. He sounds like a man who will be greatly missed. A real loss to all of us.

Rod Dreher:
Where is your proof that "liberals" domiante the newsroom? Look at the Philly Inquirer. It was bought by a known right winger. or the suburban Philly paper where I live. It's conservative as can be. Is the NY Times liberal? How can it be when it lets people like Judy Miller and Michael Gordon on the front page? Those two aren't liberals. Is Joe Klein a liberal? Then why is he publishing Peter Hoekstra's lies?

The decline in newspaper readership has more to do with competition and market segmentation than anything else. I'm interested in hard news that I find in publications like the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, Washington Post, and The Economist. All else is local yokel garbage that I leave to others to pay attention to. I have few, if any, ties to the local community where I'm at. If I were to pick up the local rag, it would no doubt be filled with stuff I'm not interested in.

Similarly, someone else may only be interested in local stuff. Or, someone may be interested in just sports. Or Dogs. Or whatever.

'General Info' content platforms are dying because technology and competition allows consumers to pick and choose what they care to read, just like how more outlets for TV has brought competition that has killed the major broadcast networks. The business model just isn't falling apart, but the monopoly position of most local papers as the sole provider of information has been fatally undermined. Why read the piss-poor coverage of national and world news in a crappy local paper when I can go straight to the NYT or the WSJ online? Why read about sports when I can just watch ESPN?

Newspaper folks are under the mistaken impression that there are still meaningful differences between media platforms. There aren't. Media brands are battling across platforms in a way that they couldn't, for both technological and regulatory reasons, even a decade ago. The NYT isn't just a paper in New York - it's a brand that symbolizes quality reporting on national and world events across a broad spectrum of platforms - online now, but eventually radio and TV too. Local yokel outfits have to figure out they can't be generalists anymore - they have to specialize in top-notch coverage of local issues and prepare to offer that content on a variety of media platforms.

Cover state and local politics/issues the same way the NYT or the WSJ covers national stuff and maybe I'll give a damn. Otherwise, don't expect me to buy garbage and call it gourmet.

Tadzio - "college brats"? "overpaid"? Are you kidding us? Most newspaper reporters are paid less than teachers. You read like some opinionated old-timer -- one who doesn't really know what he's talking about. And that's not very original, is it?

You're right to note that newspapers used to be party organs. In many European countries, they still are. But then you go kooky on us, with the college brats angle. The thing is, "sticking to the facts" is a relatively recent approach. What will happen when journalism becomes the exclusive role of undereducated, de-professionalized hacks isn't good 'ol hard-hitting news -- no, it will be exclusively profit-driven, which means cheap, celebrity-centric and/or subsidized propaganda.

THAT hardly seems worth cheering for.

Whether you're liberal, conservative, or somewhere in between, I find it hard to believe that thoughtful, intellectually engaged people cheer the demise of newspapers.

I'm not "cheering" the demise of newspapers, but I don't think the sky is falling either. I personally now have access to more varied and "fact-based" information about current events than ever before. Why are newspapers - I take that this means, news actually printed on paper, a product you have to pay for - the sacrosanct eternal way of getting information around?

I guess I just don't understand the question.

To say what kind of society and polity will we have when most people don't care about serious news, and prefer instead to focus on sports and celebrities? says

1. that "most people" (whoever that is) now do "care about serious news" and
2. when the printed newspaper goes out of business, these "most people" will then for some mysterious reason lose that interest and come to "focus on sports and celebrities."

I find both propositions very dubious. And I don't see what newspapers per se have to do with any of this.

National/big city newspapers can't disappear soon enough to please me. News reporters and analysts are gone -- all replaced by polemicists and pundits beholden to the powerful. Exterminate the brutes!

Hi. Nice article.

We don't cheer the demise of newspapers at all. We cheer the demise of biased, non-objective newspapers who act as if they know everything.

The NY Times is a classic example, and I suspect after Murdoch drives it into the ground, will be seen as respresentative of what ails newspapers. A lack of objectivity and an unwillingness to admit its influence on its stories and editorials.

Thanks r/ Bedrock Guy

So it's now, instead of arguing the POV is liberal, it's 'The media selects liberal stories'. Which is a very interesting concept...what, exactly, makes a story, as opposed to how it is covered, 'liberal'? (Besides the obvious coverage of stories about politics.)

Good catch, DaveTC. And here's your answer: the "liberal coverage" is reality-based. You know, those pernicious stories that say that global warming is real, evolution is real, trickle-down economics is a myth, hiring cronies is a bad idea, lying your way into war is evil, etc.

Hillary

But I think your basic premise is mistaken. Newspapers aren't dying! They're not even in especially poor health!

News-print is dying, and I guess that means news-paper is dying, but NYTimes.com, WSJ.com, and all the other Name-of-paper.coms are doing very well, and their numbers have been going up. Yes, blogs are big, but most political blog entries (and quite a few non-political ones) jump off by linking to a story from one of the big papers.

So yes, I think it's entirely possible that in 10 years, getting a wad of tree pulp in the morning might be an anachronism (not least because the cost of the raw tree pulp is going up). But if you instead get the daily NY Times on your Kindle, or the Washington Post on your Treo, or the LA Times on your cell phone, well, that doesn't strike me as that big a change, much less an indication of decadence.

Now, op-ed columnists may have very hard times ahead, as blogs provide the same service (semi-informed opinion-spouting) for free. But that's no great loss.

Are you sure that people ever really bought the newspaper for the front pages? Most readers probably skipped to the sports, classifieds or comics after glancing at the major stories.

The newspaper was always a mix of features. The ones that people paid the most attention to have fled to the internet, where they are free. The features that cost the most (standard journalism, esp. international news) are being forced to pay for themselves. They can't.

The changing technology (who can even believe and understand the Worldwide Web even now!!!) simply has undermined the "franchise" that newspapers owned for so long as official, inside collectors and distributors of news.
Newspapers are a middle man and now in many ways, the middle man is not needed.
Anyone who has been ill or had a family member ill knows this drill: within a few hours online, the most lay of lay people can get up to snuff on an exotic disease, enough to intelligently question a physician.
It used to be the bailiwick of journalists to know stuff better than "regular" people.
That's not the case anymore.
Who knows where things will shake out.

Another odd and perhaps not so minor part of this: There's almost an aesthetic thing going on with Gen X and younger people. They simply don't like having a newspaper around junking up their home. I can't believe how many people I've heard say that as their main reason for not subscribing to a newspaper: "I just don't want papers piling up and then have to throw them out."
Of course, let's not forget one of the big selling points of newspapers: big, well-organized news-gathering outfits.
The demand for news perhaps isn't much diminished, although shifted and much more focused on immediacy. But someone still has to gather the news.
Part of the online-news problem is a billing problem: what's a fair price to pay for perusing, say, the WaPo or NYTimes each day?
Once we can bill the 2, 3 or 4 cents most people would pay for that - maybe just a fraction of a penny - then the market will begin to work for online newspapers. And advertisers will be willing to pay a little more, if they see readers paying for the product.

nodakboy, the problem with billing for online news seems to be that it doesn't work.

NYT charged a fee for its more "interesting" op-ed articles, but gave up the practice. I assume that was because not enough people were willing to pay. WSJ was also pay-for-view, almost the only journal to adhere to this practice; I subscribed for a while, but found it wasn't worth the price. They have or will soon abolish this requirement.

So. The problem remains. The problem seems to be, "how do we make money off the internet?" If "newspaper X" cannot "sell" enough kill-the-trees copies, and if it cannot make a profit from its online service, however will Rod get paid?

A good question, to which I don't know the answer. The only people who have consistently made money from the internet, from Day One, and who are still making money, are pornographers. That might tell you something right there.

I love newspapers. I subscribe to two daily, plus the NY Times on Sunday. (I would buy the Times daily, but since it bought the Boston Globe, they are effectively duplicates.)

I don't want to read anything on a computer screen. Especially on sites like yours with black print on a dark blue background. I suggest you get a new web designer.

However, I think the craft of journalism is going away, anyway. I am really tired of reading all those "he said, she said" stories. I think I remember a day when "he said" was followed by someone digging up the facts to either prove or disprove the statements.

If there are some real journalists out there, they should be getting together with whatever support they need, and forming operations dedicated to providing journalism to whomever will pay for it. I certainly will pay for it. I prefer it on newsprint but, if I can't get it that way, I'll pay for it on my screens.

Cleveland, what do you mean by "bias"? If you are using it as a synonym for "point of view different from my own," then it's a meaningless charge. As Elizabeth and AB have tried to explain to you, editorials of all sorts are biased by definition.

If you mean "unfair," well, that's a more serious charge. But you haven't backed it up. I wrote the editorial you're complaining about here (N.B., just because I author an UNSIGNED EDITORIAL doesn't mean I agree with it in full, or any writer agrees with it). If I remember correctly, what you aren't explaining is that the school teaches that Genesis is scientifically reliable. And ... well, look, let's just reprint the whole editorial here, and let our readers decide if it was "biased" (as distinct from arriving at conclusions with which Cleveland disagrees):

[Editorial from Dec. 27, 2007 Dallas Morning News]

Did God create the universe? Did he do so according to the six-day schedule set out in the Book of Genesis?

On the first question, science must be agnostic; the scientific method of knowing cannot answer a question like that any more than theology can discover the specific gravity of mercury. On the second question, science is rather definitive: No. A literal reading of Genesis is scientifically unsupportable. If one wishes to believe the Genesis version over the scientific account, one may. But it's not science.

It's troubling, then, that the Dallas-based Institute for Creation Research, which professes Genesis as scientifically reliable, recently won a state advisory panel's approval for its online master's degree program in science education. Investigators found that despite its creationism component – which is not the same thing as "intelligent design" – the institute's graduate program offered enough real science to pass academic muster. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board will vote on the recommendation in January.

We hate to second-guess the three academic investigators – including Gloria White, managing director of the University of Texas at Austin's Dana Research Center for Mathematics and Science Education – but, still, the coordinating board had better give this case a long, hard look.

The board's job is to certify institutions as competent to teach science in Texas schools. Despite the institute including mainstream science in its programs, it's hard to see how a school that rejects so many fundamental principles of science can be trusted to produce teachers who faithfully teach the state's curriculum.

"Cleveland, what do you mean by 'bias'? If you are using it as a synonym for 'point of view different from my own,' then it's a meaningless charge....If you mean 'unfair' well, that's a more serious charge. But you haven't backed it up." Rod

I wouldn't waste anyone's time with a meaningless charge. I do mean unfair, and I did back it up. I pointed out that while the editorial made the serious charge that the school "rejects so many fundamental principals of science" (just as it was seeking state approval of its online program), the editorial failed to list those fundamental principles of science. Would that have been difficult to do if true? (I don't know, I'm asking.) You know that is what's called "drive by journalism" of the media.

Moreover, Rod, you made the charge that the school teaches Genesis, not science, so the burden was on YOU to back it up, or say in the editorial that it's just the papers's opinion that the school rejects so many fundamental principles of science. And because the school recently won a state advisory panel's approval for its online master's degree program in science education, there is no way in hell the program is some off the wall, unscientific religion class-- which the editorial sought to make it appear.

You base the editorial, only half of which appears in your 11:01 PM post, on the statement that the school "professes Genesis as scientifically reliable." What does that mean? Why didn't you relate the school's explanation of the extent to which its courses are commonly accepted science, and the extent Genesis plays in its curriculum? Who knows, you may have proved to be justified.

The ICR Graduate School degree programs first received formal approval from the State of California. The graduate school offers a Master of Science degree in Science Education with minors in general science, astro/geophysics, biology, and geology. Does that sound like the only thing the school teaches is Genesis, and gets state approval of such teaching as graduate-level science? Maybe so--why didn't you prove it?

I suspected you were the author, but merely typing up the consensus view of your liberal board members in order to stir up the usual atheist vs. theist debate.

Rod, no rational believer would disagree with the thrust of the editorial. Science and faith should not be conflated. What I do disagree with is the editorial's unsupported, liberal charge of religious kookism--potentially harmful to the school's business interest-- without at least giving the other side of the matter. How can you possibly take exception to that? We ARE discussing newspapers' problems, are we not?

"...no editorial can cover every salient point in two or three column-inches." Franklin

Right, but all salient points can be covered three times over in a quarter page editorial (which you didn't even read).

"Science, not scientists, not journalists, science rejects the notion of 'biblical truth in the field of science.' " Franklin

First, "science" today is only what scientists and journalists and school boards say it is. A self-explanatory, unbiased, pure science does not exist. Neither Mr. and Mrs. Sixpack nor our little airheads in public schools have the wherewithal or desire to go deeper than what liberal school boards allow in textbooks. Not everyone is equipped to be an Erin Manning. Second, the Bible is loaded with historical fact that aids scientific study.

"Rod had no need to expand on any point, because it was already out there under the first item in a Google search of 'Institute for Creation Research.' " Franklin

Even I can Google a name, but that's not what "well-researched" means. It is merely a starting point. I.E.,when you Googled up (an ugly term, I know) these words:

"ICR Graduate School offers an advanced degree in science education AS WELL AS self-paced non-degree curricula to prepare scientists, teachers, and professionals in other areas to thoroughly understand and effectively communicate biblical truth in the field of science."

why did you disregard the "as well as" wording and reduce everything to this:

"'God did it' is not a valid answer to any question to be found in any science class at any level"?

That is an obvious a distortion of ICR's words and was my primary criticism of the editorial. You didn't research ICR's science content in its online Graduate School advanced degree in science education curriculum, which curriculum is what the editorial was all about. You don't know any more about the science curriculum than Rod or I do, yet you assume that it is merely "God did it." Permit me, my friend, to restate the immortal words of the sainted Woody Hayes of THE Ohio State Buckeyes to his players about assuming things on the field of battle:

"When you assume, you make an ASS out of U and ME."

I benefited greatly from those words. I would hope we all do.

The editorial was 300 words long, which is just under standard length for us. Cleveland's beef is that he apparently believes that the Bible is a science textbook. I believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God. But it's not science. What Cleveland calls bias in this case, I call judgment.

Science is not subject to a vote. As you say, one should examine the details, but it's the scientific method that sets the standard, not states who decide to use or not use something.