And the Blog Goes On
The battle continues between journalists and bloggers, as played out in the Sunday Opinion section of the Philly Inquirer, called Currents. The paper featured three op-ed articles discussing the future of the newspaper industry and the impact of the internet and blogs. Not surprisingly, the opinions are varied.
Attytood, who has written extensively (and thoughtfully) about the issue, provides a summary in Newspapers and the need to let go: A "norg" roundup. "Norg" is shorthand for news organization, which is what he believes that papers need to be for the future. Substance over form - or format - is what's required in order to survive.
Daniel Rubin of Blinq also weighed in, expanding on the Inquirer's own editorial piece at He said, "Blog, Blog, Blog. As he explains:
As I see it, bloggers and journalists are distracted by side issues (newspapers vs. internet) rather than the real threat to the press (in whatever form). Blogging is just a new medium, along with radio and TV. Obviously, I think it fits in nicely as an adjunct to newspapers. Most bloggers, like me, are not serving the role of journalist per se -- they do not "report" the news. They instead work to comment on the news or to assist in the dissemination of the news. Bloggers may pick up on a story that is not widely reported and spread the word through blogs. Once it becomes a big enough story in the blogworld, it often ends up back in the press, now as a bigger story.The Sunday Inquirer scorched the earth to cover the blogs v newspapers debate, roping in Jeff Jarvis to posit how the era of newspaper may be over, Hugh Hewitt to argue how conservative blogs balance the liberal-dominated mainstream media, Richard Stengel to remind that to own a newspaper is to own a still-profitable public trust.
The Currents section's final word came from our newest op-ed columnist, Jonathan Last, who wrote a piece headlined, "Blog, humbug!: Good writing, news-gathering lose to speed and vehemence."
Paper vs. paperless "newspaper" are the alternatives that readers are choosing, rather than no paper at all. It's the finances that need to be worked out, so that the press can maintain profitability. I can see some type of cable-type package being adopted, so that I can purchase access to an on-line group of papers (e.g. NYT, Washington Post, Philly Inquirer/Daily News, etc.), for a monthly fee.
Bloggers and journalists need to focus on the fact that the "enemy" is not each other, it is outside forces. For the press, the real issue is it's credibility, which is under assault by the Bush Administration. Jay Rosen of PressThink calls it "Rollback." In describing Scott McClellan's role, in The Jerk at the Podium: Scott McClellan Steps Away, Rosen says:
McClellan was a necessary figure in what I have called Rollback— the attempt to downgrade the press as a player within the executive branch, to make it less important in running the White House and governing the country. It had once been accepted wisdom that by carefully “feeding the beast” an Administration would be rewarded with better coverage in the long run. Rollback, the policy for which McClellan signed on, means not feeding but starving the beast, while reducing its effectiveness as an interlocutor with the President and demonstrating to all that the fourth estate is a joke.I discussed risks to the press from that policy a bit in Beam me up Scotty. In one of the Inquirer's op-ed pieces, Only viable press ensures freedom, Richard Stengel said it much more eloquently:* * * *
McClellan’s specialty was non-communication; what’s remarkable about him as a choice for press secretary is that he had no special talent for explaining Bush’s policies to the world. In fact, he usually made things less clear by talking about them. We have to assume that this is the way the President wanted it; and if we do assume that it forces us to ask: why use a bad explainer and a rotten communicator as your spokesman before the entire world? Isn’t that just dumb— and bad politics? Wouldn’t it be suicidal in a media-driven age with its 24-hour news cycle?
You would think so, but if the goal is to skate through unquestioned—because the gaps in your explanations are so large to start with—then to refuse to explain is a demonstration of raw presidential power. (As in “never apologize, never explain.”) So this is another reason McClellan was there. Not to be persuasive, but to refute the assumption that there was anyone the White House needed or wanted to persuade— least of all the press! Politics demands assent, on one hand, and attack on the other. (And those are your choices with Bush and Rove: assent or be attacked.) The very notion of persuasion conceded more to democratic politics than the Bush forces wanted to concede.
Yes it is.In 1787, the year the Constitution was signed, Thomas Jefferson wrote to his friend Edward Carrington: "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."
Like many great writers, Jefferson was sometimes given to hyperbole, but his judgment reflects the framers' view that the survival of the republic depended on the free flow of information and informed citizens. Popular sovereignty - which is at the heart of our constitutional democracy - is viable only if citizens can make informed choices and considered decisions. And for all of our history, one of the critical sources of that information has been local papers.
The media are the only industry singled out for protection in the Bill of Rights, because the framers knew that where the flow of information is limited, the abuse of power becomes unlimited. The information in papers has always been a safeguard of our freedom. As Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black wrote in his opinion in the Pentagon Papers case: "The government's power to censor the press was abolished so the press would remain free to censure the government."* * * *
"Public opinion sets bounds to every government," James Madison wrote, "and it is the real sovereign of every free one." For our nation to remain free, public opinion must be informed and educated. Local papers are a vital way of doing that. They are a public trust that must be maintained and nourished and grown, otherwise, instead of having papers without a government, we might have a government without papers. That's a truly scary idea.
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