Bloggers Can't Fill the Gap Left by Shrinking Press Corps

[roseBudd]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/28/AR2009022801889.html?hpid=sec-tech

"Just look around -- it's dismal," says Bob Lewis, the Associated Press's veteran Richmond correspondent. A decade ago, he had twice as many colleagues covering state government. "And it's not just the bodies that are gone -- it's the institutional memory and knowledge...


Across the nation, it's not just that fewer reporters are covering state government; newspapers and TV stations are also devoting far less space and time to that news.

Does that mean citizens are less well-informed? Do blogs and other new media fill in where old media are cutting back? Is it really a loss if reporters cover fewer legislative debate"

I found the following particularly chilling. FYI no news organization covered the April 2004 SEC meeting that culminated in the change of the Net Capital rule.

"Time is much more precious now," Fiske says. The Virginian-Pilot has gone from a five-person capital bureau a decade ago to two full-time reporters, with one more during the session. "When we had the larger bureaus, you could do the good investigative piece. Most sessions, somebody would find someone doing something wrong. Now, we can only really cover the flow of legislation."

New York Times reporting after the fact on the Net Capital rule change.

Agency’s ’04 Rule Let Banks Pile Up New Debt

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/business/03sec.html

The proceeding was sparsely attended. None of the major media outlets, including The New York Times, covered it.

[BlooInBloo]

1. We'll make do, but thanks for your concern.

[roseBudd]

3. Really, which state house legislature are you covering? where can I see your reporting?

[BlooInBloo]

4. Kindly point to where I said I was a reporter. Thanks!

[FreakinDJ]

8. I thought the same thing

The "We" in "We make due" is a bit deceiving

[roseBudd]

17. I was being sarcastic, in no way do I believe unpaid bloggers are quitting day jobs to cover state &

local government.

Nor do I think bloggers have attorneys on retainer to enforce sunshine laws.

Idiocracy here we come.

[FreakinDJ]

39. But we have 24/7 RATpubliCON spew on the radio

and can't even get Progressive Radio here

[roseBudd]

52. Liberal radio does not work because liberals prefer reading to listening IMHO I never once

listened to Air America. It just did not appeal to me. It's way to passive and repetitive.

Leave them their radio, we own the comments on MSM newspaer sites because we are smarter and better informed.

[Mojorabbit]

5. It is something to be concerned about

most blogs other than the indy media cover news articles that are found in the msm. Information is power.

[FreakinDJ]

2. I'm sure the Corporations will have an answer for that

[gratuitous]

22. The allocation of reporting resources is a dismal void

Missing blonde in Bermuda? We get wall-to-wall coverage on a dozen cable channels. Rule change that affects millions of bank depositors? Ho hum. Can't be bothered.

[FreakinDJ]

23. Why Report - Just Parrot the Spin

They'll just cut out the "Middle Man" as usual and go straight to the Spin

[gratuitous]

27. Yeah, I suppose

I remember the firestorm that followed the Net Capital rule change and how the spinmeisters were out in force to convince the public that . . .

Wait; that didn't happen at all. You don't suppose that significant things are happening and rules that affect millions are being changed without any public knowledge at all? And that, as ubiquitous as bloggers are, it's still useful to have an organization with a number of reporters any one of whom can be assigned to a developing story?

Naaaah. Mindless snark is so free and easy. Reportin' is hard werk.

[roseBudd]

24. Really, because when you were not scouring the NYTimes they were writing a 19...

installment series on the financial crisis called The Reckoning, that was diligently researched and written by a large number of reporters

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/series/the_reckoning/index.html?scp=1-spot&sq=the%20reckoning&st=cse

Saying Yes, WaMu Built Empire on Shaky Loans
By PETER S. GOODMAN and GRETCHEN MORGENSON

Chinese Savings Helped Inflate American Bubble
By MARK LANDLER

Once Trusted Mortgage Pioneers, Now Scrutinized
By MICHAEL MOSS and GERALDINE FABRIKANT

White House Philosophy Stoked Mortgage Bonfire
By JO BECKER, SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and STEPHEN LABATON

Tax Break May Have Helped Cause Housing Bubble
By VIKAS BAJAJ and DAVID LEONHARDT

On Wall Street, Bonuses, Not Profits, Were Real
By LOUISE STORY

A Champion of Wall Street Reaps Benefits
By ERIC LIPTON and RAYMOND HERNANDEZ

Debt Watchdogs: Tamed or Caught Napping?
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON

Citigroup Saw No Red Flags Even as It Made Bolder Bets
By ERIC DASH and JULIE CRESWELL

Deregulator Looks Back, Unswayed
By ERIC LIPTON and STEPHEN LABATON

How the Thundering Herd Faltered and Fell
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON

From Midwest to M.T.A., Pain From Global Gamble
By CHARLES DUHIGG and CARTER DOUGHERTY

Building Flawed American Dreams
By DAVID STREITFELD and GRETCHEN MORGENSON

Pressured to Take More Risk, Fannie Reached Tipping Point
By CHARLES DUHIGG

Agency’s ’04 Rule Let Banks Pile Up New Debt
By STEPHEN LABATON

As Credit Crisis Spiraled, Alarm Led to Action
By JOE NOCERA

Behind Insurer’s Crisis, Blind Eye to a Web of Risk
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON

Show me the blogger who has done a better job.

[girl gone mad]

36. All AFTER the fact.

I can link you to dozens of bloggers who were warning of this crisis years ago. Many were writing in to the MSM complaining of the preferential treatment given to NAR spokespeople, banking shills and other industry insiders. The media got much of its revenue from the real estate and finance sectors and was almost completely unwilling to report on cracks in the system until the damn broke and it was too late.

Remember when Bernanke testified that sub-prime was contained? Bloggers excoriated him while the MSM took him at his word.

I remember an epic confrontation a couple of years ago between bloggers and a newspaper. The paper was quoting a real estate investor who hyped the successful deals he had been making. Bloggers wrote to the paper, warning this investor was committing fraud and very plainly laid out the details. The paper never corrected their story, even after the FBI became involved.

It doesn't take an expensive pool of journalists with elite connections to get to the bottom of things. Knight Ridder proved that when they beat out every other news organization in accuracy with their reporting leading up to the Iraq war. When asked how they got it so right while everyone else screwed up, their answer was simple: they just called up the guys on the ground in Iraq and asked for the truth.

[roseBudd]

43. You do realize Knight Rider is a newspaper not a blogger

[DainBramaged]

6. I think is is a cornspiracrazy

:tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat:

I think the powers who have controlled the media since 1996 WANT to dumb down Amerika.

[rvablue]

7. Too bad, Rosebudd, that all you really got from this post was snark, because on top of all of

the other calamities we are facing, the lack of oversight by the press, due to dwindling resources, subscriptions, advertisers and staff, is going to be a travesty that will affect the future of our democracy much more than economic meltdown, wars, etc. etc.

Thank your for posting this. I think wayyyyy too many DUers think that print reporters are the same as the bozos we see on TV.

The death of the American newspaper and the extinction of the beat reporter is a tragedy and one that will have severe consequences.

I've written a couple of posts about it and get reponses just like you did. That somehow the blogosphere is BETTER than the traditional (newspapers) press and that's it's no big deal that they are disappearing. They just don't get it.

I mean, Watergate was initially uncovered by a cub reporter -- Woodward -- doing his daily grind and sitting through petty crime hearings at the courthouse. Nowadays, that young reporter wouldn't be sitting there and Nixon and his crimes would have gone unchecked.

Oh, but that's right! Some blogger would have figured it out!!!!! :sarcasm:

Anyway, I'm with you on this. We and others need to keep posting about it. It is just as important as any other issue we are facing as a country!

[w4rma]

9. Agreed. I'm very concerned about this deteriorating situation within newsrooms. (nt)

[roseBudd]

15. And the Warren County lockdown on Nov. 4, 04 was uncovered by a cub reporter, the veteran political

beat reporter was assigned to the urban county.

And that's just one newspaper with a media coverage of 7 counties, 7 BoEs, not to mention the live reporting of polling place problems.

[Idealism]

10. Don't let some of our more sarcastic and apathetic members dissuade you

This is a huge problem in America. Knowledge is power, and American's have become dimmer each year it seems. Thanks for the article!

[madrchsod]

11. the chicago tribune just broke the story on child car seats

they have reported other safety issues dealing with defective toys and lead paint. let`s throw in the reporting of the massive corruption in illinois state politics.

if it was`t for the beat reporters and research people just what would we know?

[scarletwoman]

12. This is definitely a serious issue. Real reporting -- as opposed to opinionating -- takes funding.

Reporters need to get paid for their work just like any other profression. If the organizations that write their checks dry up and disappear, how will there be any reporters reporting on what our government is doing?

Bloggers opine about the news that reporters collect. If no one is out there collecting the news, what good will it do to have nothing but a bunch of bloggers?

sw

[Spazito]

13. There has been little REAL news reporting for years now, imo...

All that is left is infotainment and very, very few real journalists to be found. The mainstream media is no longer about reporting the facts and all about 'being' the news itself, imo, and is the cause of it's own demise.

[roseBudd]

16. The cause of it's demise IS Ebay & Craigslist, the classifieds had been a huge part

and much more important than subscriptions.

As the advertising revenue was usurped the newspapers cut reporters.

[Uncle Joe]

18. The corporate media's single minded focus with the O.J. trial came long before

E-bay and Craiglist took any revenue from them.

They've pushed image over substance for decades during Presidential Debates promoting their own self-serving corporate spin.

The worship of greed at the top combined with a loss of mission as to what news sources were supposed to be about has done more to damage their business, not to mention the nation, than anything else.

They collectively slandered and libeled Al Gore for the better part of two years prior to the selection of 2000 and they still haven't apologized for that while enabling a corrupt incompetent; obviously under-qualified for the most powerful job in the land. Bush and his co-horts wrecked the economy while trashing the Constitution, people lost faith in their traditional institutions while also losing the ability to pay for advertising.

I would suggest many in the corporate media shot themselves in the foot, by saturating advertising in place of content, and working to dumb down the American People instead of trying to lift them up and enlighten them.

[rvablue]

19. This OP is about newspapers, not the bozos on TV....and very little of what

you wrote applies to newspapers.

Besides, the LA Times, I don't remember any major newspapers giving a lot of attention to the OJ Trial.

[Uncle Joe]

20. You may be correct if you don't consider the New York Times, Washington Post,

the Wall Street Journal, Gannet Corp owned news papers such as the Tennessean or the AP which feed them as newspapers.

Edit for P.S. And U.S.A. Today.

[roseBudd]

21. Funny I don't remember newspapers devoting more than one story per day to OJ & I am fairly

certain it was an AP article. Like it or not trials are news.

Regarding OJ are you sure you are not confusing TV with the more in depth written reporting that originates with the written news?

I have huge problems with the coverage of Gore by the Washington Press Corps.

But I will not cut off my nose to spite my face.

Nor will I take for granted Bob Herbert, Paul Krugman, Frank Rich, Leonard Pitts, Eugene Robinson, Dana Milbank, Fareed Zakaria, Clarence Page, Rosa Brooks or Cynthia Tucker.

[Uncle Joe]

25. I have no doubt there are good journalists out there but Frank Rich

did as much to trash Gore while enabling Bush to power as any of the worst.

I read a column just a couple years ago where Clarence Page repeated the Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet Slander.

I can't recall any of the others calling them on it.

Trials as news should be relegated to the back pages subservient to the critical issues facing the American Nation and the World.

The vast majority of the world's scientists came to a consensus that global warming climate change was indeed a threat to human society and it was man made, years ago. Meanwhile the corporate media newspapers and television all but ignored this issue or worked to fuzz it up with controversy when there was no controversy.

[Captain Hilts]

14. I read this article this morning. REALLY good. Thanks for posting it. nt

[acmavm]

26. ? Why is that? That's all we've had for the past 8 years while these clowns

were nestling their noses up against bush**s backside.

[hay rick]

28. The old order disintegrates.

The print media are imploding as their advertising-revenue-based business model becomes obsolete. When print "boots on the ground" are lost they are replaced by- nothing. The opportunities for mischief will multiply accordingly.

I doubt that media presence at the SEC meeting in which the net capital rule was revised would have made any difference. Prior to the housing market meltdown and attendant rout of the financial firms, investment bank capital requirements would have been a story without an audience.

[roseBudd]

30. It would have been a story investors need to know about & would have been in

business. I bet there are a lot of investors that wish they knew then what has become apparent now. The 5 member SEC caved to the wants of 5 investment banks. Had there been support for the lone naysayer, it may not have passed without a whimper.

[hay rick]

33. hindsight is 20/20

Everyone wishes that "they knew then what they know now." I just think that if the information had been more generally available, very few people would have understood and appreciated the importance of the change.

[Sheltiemama]

29. "It's the institutional memory and knowledge."

Amen! When someone retires up here, I think of all the knowledge walking out the door.

[roseBudd]

31. The Wire covered the newsroom situation in the last season, the creator was

a member of the first buyouts at the Baltimore Sun.

[tonysam]

32. Blogs are Fun to Read for Different Perspectives on Current Events,

but I can't take them seriously as any REAL alternative to traditional media. People should be VERY concerned about newspapers and other traditional media having financial difficulties; information should be expanded, not narrowed.

Blogs have a place, but they are no real substitute for traditional media. As mentioned in other posts, it costs money to run a news organization; few bloggers have the means or the time to take on traditional reporting tasks.

[FrenchieCat]

34. This is going to be a difficult task!

Filing the gaps.

Wish it was the electronic media going broke and closing their doors instead.
:(

[progressoid]

35. Big K/R

If we thought the corporate media was bad. Wait until it's just Fox, CNN, MSNBC, talk radio and blogs.

[roseBudd]

37. Josh Marshall, whose Web site, Talking Points Memo, has six reporters -- and plans to hire more --

Josh Marshall, whose Web site, Talking Points Memo, has six reporters -- and plans to hire more -- does not minimize the loss of dailies.

"If all the big papers disappeared right now and we replaced them with 50 TPMs, it wouldn't come close to doing the job," he said. For now, though, most original reporting is provided by newspapers.

"If you don't have people out working as full-time reporters, there's this category of information that's not going to appear magically out of nowhere," said Nicholas Lemann, dean of Columbia University's School of Journalism, who argues that papers made a mistake by giving away their wares online. "In a world where all content is free, original newsgathering doesn't happen. We really need to face up to the fact that this is going to be lost."

With the old business model crumbling, some analysts say newspapers must find a way to charge for online content -- perhaps through "micropayments" of the kind popularized by iTunes, which offers songs for downloading at 99 cents apiece. Others say papers must go the nonprofit route, relying on donors to raise endowments, much like universities.

[PM Martin]

54. How does he pay his reporters?

[rvablue]

56. From the way some DUers are reacting to this grim news....I think this particular comment needs to

be an OP.


You should put it up tomorrow.

[chill_wind]

38. "But EPIC is what we wanted."

An interesting little flash video from a few years ago entertaining the demise of The NYT.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5165094&mesg_id=5165094

[creeksneakers2]

40. Do you think there is any chance

that after the herd is brutally thinned out that the remaining news outlets can demand paid subscriptions for their news over the net? I think they could make a profit with enough enforcement of copyright laws. If we transformed to financing news outlets by charging subscribers instead of advertisers we'd probably have better news.

[roseBudd]

45. Thinning might mean Podunkville AL but no WaPo or NYTimes the ones who are

actually covering national & international news.

I think they are leaning towards some system that would use micropayments per article.

If you saw the Mayor of San Francisco on Bill Maher he stated the Chronicle had been losing a billion a year & they are faced with no daily paper.

In a major city in America

[Sheltiemama]

50. I think we'll have to.

At least for some content. Maybe allow free access to major breaking news only.

We don't give away our printed papers for free. Why should we give away the online version? Editor and Publisher has a story up today about Hearst thinking about charging for some online content.

[roseBudd]

51. Slate tried charging, so did WSJ, both are now free, when NYTimes made the columnists

only available to subscribers bloggers put the columns out for free.

It was newspapers that send a reporter to every county BoE on election night. Not Bob Fritakis.

[ContinentalOp]

62. Absolutely not. Subscription is a non-starter. Advertising will pay the bills...

for the major news corporations from here on out. The fact that they're not surviving off of their online advertising already shows how much they missed the boat.

[eridani]

41. Bloggers really do rely on citations from traditional news organizations

Maybe they need to become non-profits like NPR?

[dorkulon]

42. Can the advetising model support the costs of real reporting?

I wonder. Perhaps after the papers go down, the demand for real reporting will create a supply on the net. The problem with the paid subscription model is simply that most people will not pay, and get their news secondhand from blogs--the same problem the papers face today. But if an organization does a good enough job, attracts a big enough audience, perhaps advertising alone can keep them afloat.

[roseBudd]

46. The problem is the print to online model, online advertising has not been able to make up the

shortfall and the economy tanking was the last straw.

Some of the larget revenue drivers were cars and real estate and we know how that is going.

[ContinentalOp]

63. It has to.

Rather than bemoaning the facts of the situation maybe we should be asking why the newspaper industry relied on classified and personal ads to stay afloat for so long. I mean, that's a pretty insane situation. The fact that Craigslist is pretty much singlehandedly bringing down print newspapers is proof to me that they are a dead model that needs to change.

[ogneopasno]

44. People mock this at their peril. Reporting is hard work, takes time and money, and when it's gone,

society will be the poorer for it. I don't see blogs filling the void newspapers will leave.

[mmonk]

47. Unfortunately, a major contracting economy will have that net effect.

[mod mom]

48. If we had a press that actually did investigation like the old days I'd agree, but

unfortunately the press has become a vehicle for RW talking points. Even when they offer up the truth, it is usually second to the spin of the right.

The Telecom Act of '96 helped create the mess we are in now. I stopped printed media subscriptions after their abominable selling of the Iraq War. I had a subscription to a local paper until they endorsed * while listing all the obvious shortcomings.

[roseBudd]

49. And you actually think no press is better? LBN on DU is going to be awful empty.

[Cha]

53. I really don't want to hear

any whining from the so-called press..that gave us 8 years of bush and the War on Iraq.

They don't do their job as a whole..if they did then the public would be clamoring for the facts instead of shying away from more bullshit.

[rvablue]

55. That's right. Newspapers in general are responsible for the Iraq War.

It must be nice to live in such a perfect world where everything is so easily delineated and blame is so easy to assign.....:eyes:

Just wait until there are no more newspapers and I will welcome you to a constant non-stop reality of "Iraq Wars" both globally, in your state and in your own neighorhood.

My, my.... How naive you are. You haven't seen nothin' yet!

[Cha]

57. As I said..I don't want to hear

any whining from the lying press.

[rvablue]

58. Cut off your nose to spite your face then......who do think broke any single important

news story in the past....oh....I don't know....100 years?

Get over your puritanism....

[Cha]

59. Get off your high horse and

don't tell me what to do.

[rvablue]

60. Newspapers are the backbone of a democracy. We will be in huge trouble without them.

If you want to take that observation personally, I'm sorry. That was not the intent. But to focus on one instance of history and say that is the reason a pillar of democracy should die off, is very short-sighted.

It's not personal. I'm just trying to wake some folks up on DU as to what a travesty this is.

[ContinentalOp]

64. Get ready to say goodbye to democracy then.

I hate to break it to you but newspapers as we know it are DEAD. No getting around it. The writing has been on the wall for at least a decade for anyone who has been paying attention. Fortunately I don't actually believe that nonsense that newspapers are the backbone of democracy so I'm not shaking in my boots.

[NuttyFluffers]

61. well, maybe the Pacifica model will finally have room to grow now.

maybe the time has come for media to be as democratized and decentralized in control as the internet, to be sustained by the community through subscriptions. Pacifica may be tiny in comparison, but that's because it was in a field being strangled by weeds. maybe now is the time that its model spurs a new carpet of flowering plants -- all different, localized, and connected to the community it serves, not through ads, but through mutual support and desire for information. it'd certainly change the whole dynamic of media, something we've been desperate for for ages.

sometimes we clamor and clamor for what we want, and when we finally get it, we suddenly become afraid that this may not be the way we wanted it after all... but by then it's too late. the change to the banking and media industry is here; are we too scared at the opportunity?

[depakid]

65. Local "news" hasn't covered state government for over 25 years

A DIRECT product of systematic deregulation which leaves them with almost no accountability for their public interest obligations- and no worries about their broadcast licenses at renewal time.