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Report Urges Broad Actions to Preserve Journalism
Journalism is at risk and American society must act to preserve it, according to a report co-authored by The Washington Post's former executive editor.
In a paper commissioned by the Columbia University Journalism School, the ex-Post editor, Len Downie, and Michael Schudson, a Columbia professor, argue the government, universities and nonprofit foundations should step in as newspapers suffer financially. (Image: myplaceforenglish.blogspot.com) In a paper commissioned by the Columbia
University Journalism School, the ex-Post editor, Len Downie, and
Michael Schudson, a Columbia professor, argue the government,
universities and nonprofit foundations should step in as newspapers
suffer financially.
The authors recommend that the Internal Revenue Service or Congress ensure the tax code allows local news outlets to operate as nonprofits. Downie and Schudson also urge philanthropic organizations to support local reporting. They suggest the Federal Communications Commission establish a fund using fees from telecommunications companies or Internet providers for grants to innovative local news groups.
The authors would also like to see public radio sharpen its focus on local news, while universities partner with professional journalists on reporting projects. Finally, Downie and Schudson suggest that data gathered by federal and local governments be made more accessible and useful to reporters.
The report, coming from one of the most prominent newspaper editors in the country, is a stark admission that newspapers' problems run deeper than the current recession.
As they lose advertisers and readers to the Web - where ads are cheap and news is often free - newspapers will play a smaller role in keeping powerful people and institutions in check, the report concludes. The focus now, the authors argue, should be finding workable alternatives.
"American journalism is at a transformational moment, in which the era of dominant newspapers and influential network news divisions is rapidly giving way to one in which the gathering and distribution of news is more widely dispersed," the report begins.
Some of the suggestions in the Downie-Schudson report already are being tried, including philanthropic funding for journalism projects. But not everyone agrees on what other ideas ought to be pursued next.
Anything with the ring of a government "bailout" of the news industry is likely to be met with skepticism. And many in the industry have argued journalists should focus on finding new for-profit models for supporting their craft rather than look for handouts.
Then again, "It's hard to think of a time when change was not controversial," said Brant Houston, the Knight Chair Professor in Investigative Reporting at the University of Illinois.
What could be worse, he argues, is if nothing is done, and journalists continue to lose their jobs.
"If this report is read and read by more than just journalists, it will be really important," said Houston, who was not involved in the report. "More nonprofit and university involvement may be just part of a transitional phase. Right now we're all interested in building a bridge to what's next. If we don't, a lot of people are going to be left on the other side and a lot of skills and knowledge are going to be lost."
On the Net:- Link to the report: http://tinyurl.com/yzkskje
13 Comments so far
Show AllI posted the article and the link on my blog so that more people will have the chance to read this report. I hope that lots of people read the report.
Oh please spare me. The so called Journalists and Newspapers did this to themselves.
They became little more then salesmen for a PRODUCT . I stopped reading most mainstream papers when their executives became more concerned with offending their advertisers then they did with giving the NEWS. I turn off TV ads when they come on just as I turn OFF the newspapers when they are trying to SELL me the official LINE .
(I just have to add here I do not read news on the Internet because it free. I can afford 2 bucks for a newspaper,. I just do not see the VALUE in reading a Newspaper that is not willing to do JOURNALISM )
"Government sources say...." is NOT news and that line used in far too many articles trying to sell things like the Iraqi war. Having newspapers reliant on that SAME government for funding will inevitably lead to them become more entrenched as an organ OF Government.
My local paper panders to the business community, having abandoned its watchdog role -- unless, of course, the target is the evil Government. I agree that the content is the problem, not the cost. I can imagine a paper I would like to read.
I agree that the problem lies with the papers. The only way this can ever be corrected is to eliminate the concentration of ownership of newspapers by a few corporations and return to the "Fairness" doctrine. Direct funding by government would be too much a conflict of interest. However, restructuring the tax code to allow operation as a non-profit would not present such a conflict.
I would like to see George Soros buy The Boston Globe, one of the best papers in the country serving a very well-educated populace, and turn it into the premiere wire service in the country, with the best-written, most intelligent (perhaps even academically-oriented) reporting available.
I wonder why the tax code has prohibited non-profit ownership of newspapers. On what grounds? I do know our nation's Founders considered newspapers and opinion journals vital elements of our democratic Republic. Congress should probably also revisit the postal rate issue to help keep lower circulation magazines afloat.
This week on CounterSpin: Argentina just passed a media law that will severely curb the power of the country’s largest conglomerates by putting a majority of the country’s broadcast licenses in non-corporate hands. How did the law come about, and how is it expected to change Argentina’s media landscape. And what lessons might U.S. media activists take from Argentina’s example? We’ll talk with Marie Trigona, an independent journalist and filmmaker based in Argentina.
CounterSpin (10/16/09-10/22/09)
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3927
we started getting our news on line because we could no longer
trust msm. almost the entire content of a paper became
page six with lindsey lohan or madonna or some stupid
inane article that was "NEWS" because they told us it was.
no more war environmental or any thing else of consequence
was printed. so we adapted which any intelligent organism
does when presented with a shift within its environment.
newspapers however were not so intelligent. its really
about survival of the fittest isn't it. i started reading
the morning paper at 4 years old and it became a daily ritual
which was encouraged by my folks. its ironic because my
dad who is 85 still gets his morning paper which is now
good for washing windows wrapping fish or any other
task other then reporting the news. i won't read it other
then sports stats which they now do only ok. they did it
to themselves.giving them a tax break would be a great idea
if it wasn't for the fact that they are often a subsidiary
of some multinational or defense contractor. the largest problem in the equation is retraining all the folks who made their living in the business. a lot of printed materials are of course as most other things printed in china or asia
and most of the liars are now in washington dc leaving
the reporters with perhaps the least amount of opportunities
because there are only so many congress and senate seats!
the fourth estate now has a sign on it which says "danger
collapse is imminent"!
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
I have zero sympathy for any present or recent past editor from an MSM newspaper in the top market tier. McClatchy was great and Knight-Ridder less so. The rest of the big boys in print and broadcast are a bunch of goose-stepping fools and traitors to the working-class and under-class. They have a long tradition of being riddled with CIA plants and other corporatist tools. To hell with the MSM print media. I wish their broadcast and cable equivalents were in as much trouble. Citizen journalism needs to develop better standards and expand to take up the slack. Low-power FM radio is the platform for progressivism and if progressives don't seize on this and realize its market penetrating potential the "Christian" Right or some other right-wing malefactors soon will.
From Democracy Now today:
"In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA, is investing in Visible Technologies, a software firm that specializes in monitoring social media websites, including blogs, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and online forums. Wired.com reports this is part of a larger movement within the spy services to get better at using “open source intelligence”—information that’s publicly available. A spokesperson for In-Q-Tel said it wants Visible to keep track of foreign social media and give spies early warning detection on how issues are playing internationally."
At least the New York Slimes is losing another 100 reporters. I hope they take the Washington Post with them when they go.
"If we don't, a lot of people are going to be left on the other side and a lot of skills and knowledge are going to be lost."
How self-serving can they get? Newspapers have had their day and owners and journalists will have to adjust to the paradigm shift.
Ever notice how hard it is to find a good wainwright these days?
Two words: Judith Miller.
The New York Times has this crack journalist, Miller, writing propaganda produced by the Bush administration that's helping to launch a war against Iraq. Her reports continue week after week about weapons of mass destruction - pure lies. No real apology comes from the NYT for helping sell the war to the public, but really they abetted a crime.
The NYT also puts a muzzle on leaked information that the Bush administration was tapping the public network. The information comes out before the Presidential election, but Times management squashes it after hearing a plea from the Bushies.
Whole books have been written about our major dailies spewing propaganda, such as Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman's "Manufacturing Consent," among others.
You could see the dailies disintegrating. The Los Angeles Times, once one of the most liberal papers, purged staff and brought in a bunch of right-wing columnists under Sam Zell's ownership. However, the LAT had been sinking into a consumerist rag that supposedly matched the upper-crust readership reflected by its advertising.
Of course, we also saw good journalists, like Ray Bonner, purged when they reported on things like the El Mozote massacre during a time when Otto Reich was feeding disinformation to the press from the Reagan White House's Office of Public Diplomacy.
The problem, plain and simple, is corporate ownership of the press. Nonprofit guilds sound like a good plan. People still need to get paid to write, which takes time. I just long ago stopped subscribing to the corporate-owned press.
-TIA
http://therealnews.com
For the cost of a newspaper subscription, you can support an alternative to corporate owned TV news (or just watch the video news for free, to check it out). They are just gearing up recently, and hope to become a cable TV channel like CNN and FOX, to compete with the corporate and government censored news mass markets.
And being global, for any English speakers, they can gather financial support across many countries (they are based in Canada).
My "turning off" FOX does squat - my donating to theRealNews supports a new network for the 21st century.
Attention Earth:
Most in the US are owned by NewsCorp and Sinclair broadcasting, the ones that wouldn't let most important issues of the day be aired, and wouldn't cover important third party candidates. I say: LET EM' DIE.
(alone for lying to us about WMD.)
Who needs another bailout? Who needs to cut down trees? The net is Freedom. A newspaper owned by elites is little more than content-less propaganda.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson