It’s not nice to kick folks when they’re down. But, hey, newspapers made a lucrative industry out of it for so long, a small turnabout seems only fair. Especially to underscore a larger point.
And, boy, down are they ever! The news of newspapers’ rapid demise is unrelenting, one paper cut after another.
At this writing, we’re waiting to hear the latest from The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, with published speculation they’ll announce sharp cuts in production and/or days of delivery and jobs.
Their announcement, of course is hardly “news,” coming as it does on the heels of the bankruptcy filing by The Tribune Company, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and Baltimore Sun, giants in the history of our nation and now with a good chance of becoming history themselves. Said announcement following the Christian Science Monitor saying it will drop weekly print editions early in 2009.
Closer to home there have been fresh announcements of major cuts throughout the Gannett chain (Lansing State Journal, Battle Creek Enquirer, Port Huron Times Herald — in addition to the impending cuts at the Detroit Media Partnership that controls the business part of the News and Free Press), Booth Newspapers (The Grand Rapids Press, The Ann Arbor News, et. al.), and other papers, including Royal Oak’s Daily Tribune (my alma mater) cutting back from six to four days a week.
It’s sad, troubling and potentially dangerous to our democracy to lose all these watchdog journalists and their employers. Anyone (probably over 40…but that’s another part of the larger story) who loves his/her paper every morning is sickened by what’s happening (regardless of whether it’s self-inflicted by inept management or the result of generational and technological change).
On the other hand, public corruption being a recession-proof industry, we can be sure some other media formation will rear up to fill the watchdog void created by the vanishing papers. We can, can’t we?
The answer is probably yes. As we should well know by having read so many overblown newspaper stories all our lives, catastrophe is never quite as close as we’re led to believe.
But I’m a little less certain of that after reading a recent editorial in the State Journal, the only major daily newspaper based in Michigan’s capital city. (Now here comes the kicking part.) If you want to see the practical effects of a diminished staff (without a state government politics reporter for many months), pick up the December 5 edition.
Its otherwise solid editorial against legislation approved by the House to ban wine shipments to Michigan consumers includes this revealing lapse:
“(Mid-Michigan Reps. Joan Bauer, Rick Jones and Mark Meadows voted ‘yes.’ Rep. Barb Byrum’s office declined to report her vote and Rep. Paul Opsommer was unavailable.)”
Say what? One rep’s office refused to say how the public official voted and another couldn’t be found by the newspaper? Talk about throwaway lines, that one should make you want to throw away the paper.
The fact that the capital’s newspaper couldn’t find out quickly how two of its local reps voted in a public legislative session on an issue of keen interest to its own editors says more than I ever can about the lethal effects of thousands of paper cuts.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Craig Ruff // Dec 23, 2008 at 9:38 am
News without newspapers: how very sad. You are absolutely correct about the grave threat to the critical watchdog role of print journalism.
2 William Hamilton // Jan 12, 2009 at 4:50 pm
I agree with our esteemed Dome editor. The decline in newspaper readership and quality (a chicken and egg question) can’t be good for our democratic institutions. Yes, there are a number of internet outlets. Perhaps too many. There needs to be a good statewide newspaper. The State Journal is a disgrace and may was well close its doors. I think Crains actually does the best reporting of state government and politics. If they just beefed up a little, and perhaps printed local editions, we might have something.
3 John Scott // Jan 12, 2009 at 10:50 pm
As one who, somewhat guiltily, gave up on the Lansing State Journal a couple of years ago, I’m not surprised that their reporters are given no more training in news-gathering than the pretty people who “report” for the local TV news outlets. What I’m deathly afraid of is an infomocracy where much if not most of the internet “news” is rumor, hunch, or attitude masquerading as objective news.
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