a different thought on the dying newspapers
This is prompted by reading yet another blog post about the problem of the reporters being much too chummy with the reported on. "Stockholm Syndrome" "the Villagers" etc.
And careful news readers already know that the real financial problem was the takeover by Wall Street. Newspapers were making very nice profits. So they got bought up by leveraging maniacs who demanded that profit margins go up every year, year after year. An insanity more prominent in other places, but no less destructive in journalism.
But there's something else, beneath those. Being a newspaper reporter used to be a job. Somehow, it got turned into a profession. Mike Royko, one of the most famous reporters to come from Chicago, grew up over a bar. Now there are fancy degrees in journalism. I very strongly suspect that a lot of the fire went out when the class of the job-holders changed. (I dunno. Maybe I should ask Abe.)
And careful news readers already know that the real financial problem was the takeover by Wall Street. Newspapers were making very nice profits. So they got bought up by leveraging maniacs who demanded that profit margins go up every year, year after year. An insanity more prominent in other places, but no less destructive in journalism.
But there's something else, beneath those. Being a newspaper reporter used to be a job. Somehow, it got turned into a profession. Mike Royko, one of the most famous reporters to come from Chicago, grew up over a bar. Now there are fancy degrees in journalism. I very strongly suspect that a lot of the fire went out when the class of the job-holders changed. (I dunno. Maybe I should ask Abe.)