NPR: "The Fate of the Newspaper Industry"

Posted by Caroline Huber on May 6, 2009 at 5:53 PM

In anticipation of the Senate Commerce Committee hearings that will be held later today to address the future of the US newspaper industry, NPR's Diane Rehm interviews media and journalism analysts to examine the fate of journalism in the midst of recession and changing media.

In the interview Rehm speaks with Associate Professor of Journalism at American University Jane Hall, former newspaper editor and Reflections of a Newsosaur blogger Alan Mutter, Editor and Senior Vice President of the American Journalism Review Rem Reider, and Editor of the Milwaukee-Journal Sentinel and new President of ASNE Martin Keiser. The four journalists agree on essential points that echo what many media analysts have said before: economic recession and decreased circulation and readership are leading to the decline of newspapers; the issue at hand is more about preserving quality journalism than about saving the printed newspaper; the development of a new business model is crucial to the survival of journalism; and government intervention is risky because it might conflict with the media's role as watchdog.

Mutter points out that in his experience as a professor he finds that the younger generation, though not necessarily indifferent to news, is finding print newspapers more and more irrelevant. Despite this, Hall maintains that the contention that quality journalism cannot continue online is a fallacy. Yet one problem with online news is that there is a new burden on the consumer to assess the reliability of the information, and Mutter uses the term "curating" in reference to how news services review, analyze, and present information to busy consumers.

Hall and Reider stress the need for a new business model that will support the funding of original, quality journalism. Already journalism is suffering, says Keiser, as publications can no longer afford full coverage. Yes, the modern audience wants information fast and from multiple sources, but it is not successful aggregators like Google News who do the expensive reporting and investigating. Newspapers are still producing most of today's valuable journalism, and while Reider believes it is still appreciated, there exists a problem of a viable business platform.

The four analysts speak of many options and initiatives--non-profits like the St. Petersburg Times, possibilities regarding antitrust laws and mergers, journalism initiatives like ProPublica, niche publications like Politico, going online-only like the Seattle P-I--yet none of them know where the solution lies. Hall and Keiser do agree that a "national conversation" is imperative because news publications and journalists need the support of the public: the American public needs to recognize the importance of journalism in their lives and work towards a solution to preserve it.

Source: WAMU 88.5 FM