Sunday, January 25, 2009

Newspaper Opinions

I've been trying to find out what's going on at the Seattle P-I lately, and it appears from their Facebook group the P-I Pirates, which I'm a part of, that the tone is optimistic. Not much news to report on the actual subject, but I'll keep my ear out. I think it's a facinating saga, myself.

Whatever the outcome, there has been an enormous amount of outreach, well-wishers, and supporters from the Seattle community and all over the country. Some people are ready for the P-I to fail, and many people believe print meda is dead or don't trust it. After searching around Seattle websites, I found a comment by someone who obviously works in the paper industry, or has a fantastic working knowledge of it. This was in response to The Stranger's coverage of the P-I sale. I simply can't summarize. It makes very valid points about writing, reporting, and editing.

"Where are all you dillwads going to get your news? From your precious blogs? From your navel? Print or online makes no difference -- if you don't have a newsroom full of dedicated reporters, then you get s%@#. Who do you think is going to investigate the corruption in the King County Police Department? Remember that? Should we just "get Jesse" over at King 5. Not. In the real world, outside our Puget oasis, reporters get killed and stuff. Do you really think some blogger sitting around in his jammies is going to get the real dirt on gang violence? Or corruption in the mental health system? You need a team of hard workers with lots of support. The Stranger is great, but journalistically, it reads like the staffers' shoe leather takes them as far as Cafe Presse and back.



Daily papers usually make it to your door during earthquakes and storms and power outages. They usually have high standards (commerce secretary, anyone?). And they let you happen upon stories you might not otherwise see. (Is there a term for blogosphere blinders? Screeching to the choir?) Just because papers are old media doesn't mean we shouldn't all have a stake in bringing them into the "new" world. All this hipster arrogance about how the papers "asked for it" doesn't really help democracy keep rolling. You all owe a lot to the news crews of the world who crank out the copy you link to and bitch about.



Why don't we all pull together our trust funds, buy some of this cheap office space, stick the P-I globe on top and call it the People's Independent. Then everyone can take turns working there, covering the glitz and the tedium and putting out an awesome daily (or hourly, if you prefer). Then, when you take the bus to a new spa in Tacoma, or an art opening in Georgetown, you can do a little news gathering along the way. But you'll have to answer to an editor and to readers who know your name.



(That said, I think the Stranger should make like big media and buy a helicopter. Call it "Sky Queen.")"


One more thing: on the P-I staff's FB page, there have been postings about new jobs, and links to workshops to learn new online skills. Here's the thing about the whole "The internet made me lose my job!" complaint that keeps swirling around: Writers and reporters write about and cover this stuff every day; did they not see the industry swinging in that direction? It seems sometimes that we aren't as savvy as we should be in this business.

2 comments:

Brian said...

Did the church see the printing press coming? Sure, it raised the literacy rate, but it also produced a lot of bibles. I don't think anyone is questioning the need for valuable news reporting, but the medium is changing. Period.

Marty Brown said...

Monks kept copying manuscripts out by hand in their scriptoria for hundreds of years after Gutenberg. They even copied printed books. A new technology can render an older technology obsolete, but the institutions built up around those older technologies don't just disappear overnight. Not entirely. Seattle still has the Times. For now.