Syndicated Content Kills
In the multiverse there are several “me”s that are bonafide journalists. If it hadn’t been for a serious case of shyness – and a well-timed appearance of a girl – in this universe, I would have gone to the University of Missouri – Columbia and studied journalism. But I’m sure in quite a few universes I’m running around chasing down stories and writing under a byline.
Of course in most of those universes I would have switched careers by now to public relations because journalism – especially newspaper journalism – is dying.
John Dvorak at PCMag.com has an interesting take on why newspaper journalism is circling the drain.
What really killed the papers was their dependency on classified ads. Along came Craigslist, and boom, the classifieds were decimated—and so too were the papers. To save money, publishers cut writers and used more syndicated material than ever. It was like attempting to fix a flat by letting the air out of the rest of the tires.Many papers began producing a crappy product with no local value. The Internet, radio, and TV all served the public better. Worse, what staff was left on the paper all seemed politically motivated in a very singular, unbalanced, and preachy way. It had no appeal for readers.
His take is that the syndication and the attempted takeover of local newspapers by the big coast dailies that it fostered is really what killed newspaper journalism. Pre-Internet I used to read two or more daily newspapers a day; but I haven’t touched a daily newspaper in probably a decade or so. In Delaware I was frustrated by the lack of local news. The local paper had national and international stories that I could get anywhere, but the local stories I was interested in weren’t there – probably because it cost too much to pay reporters to write it. Cheaper to outsource journalism to the New York Times or the Los Angeles Times. But then why would I buy the Delaware paper? Here in rural North Carolina there aren’t any daily local newspapers – just weeklies. And they are actually a good read because they are 100% local.
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