Print media declining in relevance?

[Robin Garr]

Marty's reviews at the CJ have been a consistent breath of fresh air after years of mediocrity. For the first time in a long time, the CJ restaurant review is relevant.

No question that Marty is a quantum jump above his predecessor, although even his rejuvenated dining reviews are still appearing in the context of a dying medium with declining circulation and influence. Harrumph.

Marty's reviews at the CJ have been a consistent breath of fresh air after years of mediocrity. For the first time in a long time, the CJ restaurant review is relevant.

No question that Marty is a quantum jump above his predecessor, although even his rejuvenated dining reviews are still appearing in the context of a dying medium with declining circulation and influence. Harrumph.

Hmmm ... wonder what the new medium with increasing eyeballs and influence might be?!

[Robin Garr]

Hmmm ... wonder what the new medium with increasing eyeballs and influence might be?!

Seriously? I used to think the Internet might gradually replace print media, but underestimated the fragmentation of the media market. Right now it seems that there are thousands of alternate news sources, in print, on television and online, and that the scene is increasingly balkanized, especially when we're talking about sources of news and information as opposed to entertainment.

But certainly it's hard to imagine many people relying exclusively on traditional metro daily newspapers as their only source, or even as their primary source, of news and information any more. Even in cities better served by stronger news companies than Gannett.

Maybe fragmentation isn't such a bad thing, as people treat all the options like a smorgasbord and put together a combination of sources that's they tailor for themselves and that changes over time.

Hmmm ... wonder what the new medium with increasing eyeballs and influence might be?!

Seriously? I used to think the Internet might gradually replace print media, but underestimated the fragmentation of the media market. Right now it seems that there are thousands of alternate news sources, in print, on television and online, and that the scene is increasingly balkanized, especially when we're talking about sources of news and information as opposed to entertainment.

But certainly it's hard to imagine many people relying exclusively on traditional metro daily newspapers as their only source, or even as their primary source, of news and information any more. Even in cities better served by stronger news companies than Gannett.

Maybe fragmentation isn't such a bad thing, as people treat all the options like a smorgasbord and put together a combination of sources that's they tailor for themselves and that changes over time.

But, don't you have to be careful of the news sources you accept? It seems to me that there are many sources that purport to be news, but they have an agenda. At one time at least you could count on the dailies to have trained, professional journalists who might have some semblance of a belief in their function as the fourth estate (even though the CJ leaned left, but at least I knew that ). Today, I'm always looking for the ulterior motives in what I read.

[Robin Garr]

But, don't you have to be careful of the news sources you accept? It seems to me that there are many sources that purport to be news, but they have an agenda.

Very good point, Jay. I absolutely agree, and this is one of the great concerns about news sources "fragmenting," in my opinion. You can use the wealth of sources available to us wisely or foolishly or somewhere in between, and even if you're very careful, you've still got to filter a lot and be skeptical. I think this may be irreconcilable, as the old "newspapers of record" become a much less important part of the overall picture. It's not just newspapers, though. Not to get into a right-left thing, but does anyone really believe that Fox TV News is really "fair and balanced?" The other problem with fragmentation is that in the absence of one dominant voice it becomes easy to hear it all as just one dull roar, and it's not as easy to get the news as it was when you could pick up one trustworthy print source.

At one time at least you could count on the dailies to have trained, professional journalists who might have some semblance of a belief in their function as the fourth estate (even though the CJ leaned left, but at least I knew that ). Today, I'm always looking for the ulterior motives in what I read.

The scarier thing now is that it's no longer reasonable to assume that your local paper's news coverage isn't slanted. Not necessarily right vs left, but look at the Gannett CJ's antics with merger, the Museum Tower, the bridges and the arena project.

I really think that the biggest factor in the loss of the first two metro-merger efforts back in the 80s, and the more recent passage of metro, was that even though the publisher wanted merger to pass in the old days, he insisted that the news staff cover it skeptically, and never, ever let the editorial opinion show through in the news pages. In the more recent venture, the paper was almost embarrassing in the way it was a cheerleader for merger in the news pages. I'm not saying that merger was a bad thing, but certainly having a newspaper that takes sides in the news pages is. And the funny thing about it is that management never understood that by giving up its credibility, it was self-inflicting a possibly mortal wound. If you can't trust the paper to cover a major local issue even-handedly, how can you trust it to tell you where to eat dinner?

Not that any of this has anything much to do with Speakeasy.

The scarier thing now is that it's no longer reasonable to assume that your local paper's news coverage isn't slanted. Not necessarily right vs left, but look at the Gannett CJ's antics with merger, the Museum Tower, the bridges and the arena project.

I'm curious what you mean by that last sentence. Do you think the CJ's coverage is slanted toward the current administration? Or the opposite? Since I've had the opportunity to watch much of the bridge debate from the inside (the perspective of funding, in particular) I haven't found their coverage to be slanted either way, only usually incomplete or incorrect!

I think fragmentation is no less dangerous than relying on one source, if one's reliance on the one source is naive in nature. We all want to read or hear mostly those things that reinforce our own thinking, and that is easily accomplished through the fragmentation of the news, or just blindly reading/hearing the one source that might support a hard right or hard left view (assume that is what the reader/listener seeks). And, you're right - how did we get here from Speakeasy? Good luck to them - I love the location and the renovation of the building. (And I think you probably meant Museum Plaza ...)

...The other problem with fragmentation is that in the absence of one dominant voice it becomes easy to hear it all as just one dull roar, and it's not as easy to get the news as it was when you could pick up one trustworthy print source...

Sorry for the digression, but here is a cogent definition of what I miss. This is from a January 1960 piece in The Atlantic magazine entitled "The Job of the Washington Correspondent" by Walter Lippmann.

“If the country is to be governed with the consent of the governed, then the governed must arrive at opinions about what their governors want them to consent to. How do they do this?

“They do it by hearing on the radio and reading in the newspapers what the corps of correspondents tell them is going on in Washington, and in the country at large, and in the world. Here, we correspondents perform an essential service … We make it our business to find out what is going on under the surface and beyond the horizon, to infer, to deduce, to imagine, and to guess what is going on inside, what this meant yesterday, and what it could mean tomorrow.

“In this we do what every sovereign citizen is supposed to do but has not the time or the interest to do for himself. This is our job. It is no mean calling. We have a right to be proud of it and to be glad that it is our work.”

This, and excerpts from other historic pieces on the media from The Atlantic , are referenced in the September 2007 edition of the magazine and on-line at http://www.theatlantic.com/ideastour/media/

[Robin Garr]

I'm curious what you mean by that last sentence. Do you think the CJ's coverage is slanted toward the current administration? Or the opposite? Since I've had the opportunity to watch much of the bridge debate from the inside (the perspective of funding, in particular) I haven't found their coverage to be slanted either way, only usually incomplete or incorrect!

Mostly I was just bloviating before coffee on a Sunday morning. And of course it's tough no longer having an insider's view. I guess my sense of the bridge debate isn't so much that they've been consistent as that they've let the editorial board's opinions about what's right seep into the news coverage. They couldn't really be against the Prospect bridge, but at times it seemed that they gave almost disproportionate coverage to the wealthy-neighbor opposition at a level and with a degree of apparent sympathy that was rarely given to, say, the airport displacement of Minor Lane Heights. Ditto for being very quick to embrace the two-bridge solution; and then to treat the 86-64 crowd as non-news for many months. Stuff like that. It just adds to my anti-Gannett angst to see them doing things so differently than under the Binghams.

Frankly, I can understand that. I was personally for the library tax referendum back in the early '80s, for instance, and I know the Binghams were, too. Yet the papers helped kill it by giving scrupulous, almost overly thorough coverage of the opposition - and I had to write most of those stories for The Times. Same kind of thing with the 1982 and 1983 merger campaigns. Which raises a serious question: Is it better for the paper to be ethical, and by doing so help defeat causes that the publishers and the reporters might personally favor? Or is it better to be unethical in what it perceives as a good cause? It's not an entirely easy decision, but having grown up under the Binghams, I've got to vote for "be ethical and lose."

I think fragmentation is no less dangerous than relying on one source, if one's reliance on the one source is naive in nature. We all want to read or hear mostly those things that reinforce our own thinking, and that is easily accomplished through the fragmentation of the news, or just blindly reading/hearing the one source that might support a hard right or hard left view (assume that is what the reader/listener seeks). And, you're right - how did we get here from Speakeasy? Good luck to them - I love the location and the renovation of the building. (And I think you probably meant Museum Plaza ...)

I don't disagree with any of that. We probably ought to split off this digression from Speakeasy into a new thread in the off-topic section, though.

[Robin Garr]

Sorry for the digression, but here is a cogent definition of what I miss.

Well-digressed, Jay. Thanks.

Found it!

You know, I don't consider Gannett a conservative voice at all, and can't even come close to thinking of the CJ as anywhere near right (or even center, for that matter). So, it is interesting that the 8664 discussions have been relatively sparse outside of the letters to the editor section.

And, you know how I feel about this: keep our fingers crossed the library referendum has a happy ending (meaning, it passes!).