Here’s a fascinating look at how and why investigative journalism is in a period of serious decline. I would rate it as a must-read for anyone who actually has a concern for the future of journalism in America. (This might even include a few publishers.)
The PBS piece (note it is the work of a nonprofit) uses the layoff of prize-winning Sun-Sentinel reporter Mc Nelly Torres to open an examination of how the newspaper industry enjoyed years of unsustainably huge profits, then cut its own throat in an attempt to perpetuate them. It includes some comment from former Courant reporter Brant Houston, now Knight Chair in investigative reporting at the University of Illinois.
And here’s an interesting tidbit from the story’s third page: there is a correlation between newspaper quality and circulation. Shocking! Who knew?
*Note: At one of my first supervisor meetings as a newly hired Courant editor, (back when there was a six-week Christmas bonus and free health coverage) then-Managing Editor Mike Waller walked into the room wearing an old reporter’s hat. He was determined to beat our local competition and exhorted us to “Drink their blood.” I think he would now agree that newspapers have lately been consuming their own.
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I hope all the folks who’ve politely listened to my rant about how newspapers are committing suicide will read the linked article. It lays out the same arguments I’ve been making, but presents a convincing case for them, which is more than I could do in an impromptu harangue. Reduced quality results in reduced circulation? The idiots who’ve destroyed the Courant couldn’t open their minds to that possibility because to do so would refute their claims that the paper’s declining readership was some sort of act of nature rather than their own fault. The lack of executive accountability in the newspaper business is shocking. They can fail miserably and escape blame by foisting it on “the Internet.”