The Human Side of Newspapers

For all I’ve written about the changing landscape for text-based news, I have touched only briefly on the very real human component that is afflicted by this evolution.  There will be genuine sadness and hardship that accompanies the inevitable shift from news printed on dead trees to news distributed online, and it will come in the form of layoffs.  But even beyond that, the loss of a newspaper is not the just the failing of a company.  It is the instant disappearance of an institution, the vanishing of a familiar and relied-upon piece of everyday life.  While I fall on the side of those who believe that newspapers need to adapt their business and operational models for the digital landscape, it would be hard-hearted of me not to acknowledge the suffering that this change will bring to many well-meaning people.

This touching, emotional video by Matthew Roberts highlights that suffering.  On Friday, the Rocky Mountain News — the former competitor to The Denver Post — published its final edition.  The RMN was put on sale for a month, but no buyers came forward.  This video features interviews with everyone from the paper’s editor to reporters, from the mayor of Denver to random people on the street.  It is really well done and absolutely worth twenty minutes of your time.  But don’t believe everything you hear.

While the story is compelling and the testimonies truly heartbreaking, you should be careful about believing everything that is stated or implied by this short documentary.  There is a recurring message that, because this one newspaper is dying, there will be no one to ask the hard questions in Denver, no one to perform the deep reporting that is necessary to keep the people fully informed.

Well, that’s just not true.  First of all, though it is only briefly mentioned as “the other paper” by a few Denverers, The Denver Post is indeed still being published.  While the lack of competition may be worrisome, it’s not like journalism is vanishing.  Secondly, someone says that “the blogs are not asking the tough questions.”  That may be true, I’m not familiar enough with the Denver branch of the journalistic blogosphere to comment on its current state.  But if true,  does this mean that blogs will never be able to ask the hard questions?  Or that a new entity somewhere between blogs and a newspaper will emerge to fill the void?  Just because a newspaper is closing does not mean that high integrity journalism is extinct.  The drop in demand that led to the failing of the RMN was not the demand for news, just the demand for newspapers.  The demand for news is still high, but the suppliers are not providing news in the way that consumers are demanding it.

The most troubling moment from this video comes when one interviewee basically says that “we (journalists) must tell the people that newspapers are the better source of journalism.”  Friend, you’ve got it backwards.  Readers are telling you that your format is becoming less and less relevant.  You can’t control the demand of the people when the competing alternative is too compelling.  I regret the tragedy that is occurring for your career and your future, but you should stop assuming that it’s happening because your readers “don’t get it.”  They get it just fine, but you’re not listening and you’re not reacting.  The old adage still rings true: the customer is always right.

I felt my eyes welling a little when I watched this video.  It’s always sad to watch people lose their jobs, to see their careers go careening as they try to understand what is happening and what to do next.  To watch employees buy lottery tickets in the hope that — if they were to miraculously hit the jackpot — they could buy the paper themselves.  But my sadness also comes from the senseless desperation to preserve an increasingly antiquated thing in the face of such a grand opportunity to improve their product, to evolve their profession and take advantage of the ways technology can help them become better reporters and public advocates.  Further to my dismay and disbelief, instead of seizing an enormous chance, they lash out at the Internet as the enemy.  Journalists, please, for all our sakes, listen up: the Internet is anything but your enemy.  It is your golden ticket.

You should watch this video, but do so with a healthy dash of skepticism.