Are We on Track for a Golden Age of Serious Journalism?
Falling sales and profits augur badly for serious news. Two leading US experts ask if an online renaissance is in the making
Steven Johnson
Paul Starr
Dear Paul:
Let’s start with the places where we are likely to agree. First, newspapers have historically supplied civic and public goods that are essential to a healthy democratic culture. Second, newspapers themselves are in a dire financial state, thanks to long-term changes wrought largely by the internet, the (hopefully) short-term economic crisis and, for some papers, the reckless financial decisions of their owners. Whatever the underlying causes, though, I think you and I will agree that the newspaper business—and thus its editorial product—is going to look fundamentally different five or ten years from now.The question is whether a new model will emerge to provide the public goods that the newspapers previously supported through their high-margin local monopolies (at least in the US). I think there is good reason to believe that the news system that is currently evolving online will actually be an improvement on the newspaper model that we’ve been living with for the past century.
Dear Steven
I agree that a new model of news and public controversy is emerging online and that in some respects, particularly the range of opinion it accommodates, the online environment has advantages over the traditional world of print. But the reality is that resources for journalism in the United States, especially at the metropolitan and regional level, are disappearing faster than the new media can create them. You use the metaphor of an “ecosystem,” and a comforting notion it is: new growth springs up as old growth dies. But you are mistaking the forest for some of the trees. Let’s beware of wishful extrapolation. If one area of a country has heavy rains and there is drought elsewhere, I do not infer from the rainy areas that tomorrow the deserts will bloom—at least, not without irrigation. Moreover, the organic metaphor itself is deceptive. The media don’t develop naturally. They develop historically, and the forces that govern their development are, above all, political and economic.
Steven Johnson
Paul Starr
Dear Paul:
Let’s start with the places where we are likely to agree. First, newspapers have historically supplied civic and public goods that are essential to a healthy democratic culture. Second, newspapers themselves are in a dire financial state, thanks to long-term changes wrought largely by the internet, the (hopefully) short-term economic crisis and, for some papers, the reckless financial decisions of their owners. Whatever the underlying causes, though, I think you and I will agree that the newspaper business—and thus its editorial product—is going to look fundamentally different five or ten years from now.The question is whether a new model will emerge to provide the public goods that the newspapers previously supported through their high-margin local monopolies (at least in the US). I think there is good reason to believe that the news system that is currently evolving online will actually be an improvement on the newspaper model that we’ve been living with for the past century.
Dear Steven
I agree that a new model of news and public controversy is emerging online and that in some respects, particularly the range of opinion it accommodates, the online environment has advantages over the traditional world of print. But the reality is that resources for journalism in the United States, especially at the metropolitan and regional level, are disappearing faster than the new media can create them. You use the metaphor of an “ecosystem,” and a comforting notion it is: new growth springs up as old growth dies. But you are mistaking the forest for some of the trees. Let’s beware of wishful extrapolation. If one area of a country has heavy rains and there is drought elsewhere, I do not infer from the rainy areas that tomorrow the deserts will bloom—at least, not without irrigation. Moreover, the organic metaphor itself is deceptive. The media don’t develop naturally. They develop historically, and the forces that govern their development are, above all, political and economic.
posted by temporal at 5/15/2009
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