I've been reading a lot of newspapers lately, now that my business is more print than ever before. The news you read in newspapers isn't what it used to be, and if it is, the paper may not be in business for long.
For small town papers, things are in some ways a little slower at changing. People still want to see the cute photos of the kids at the local elementary school, hear all the news from city council or know their neighbor made the dean's list in a traditional format. However, in the bigger cities/large towns, things are a bit tougher I think.
Newspapers are now competing with not just TV and Internet in general, but social media. I can tell you from a first person point of view that's true. My generation, some older than me and all the generations below me are falling more and more into this trend.
If it wasn't for my job, I wouldn't read the actual physical newspaper. Maybe I shouldn't say that, but it's true. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying newspapers aren't relevant, because they are. Our local government, schools etc. will always be relevant. That means we need local media in some form. However people more and more are going straight to the web. I like digital newspapers with the same design, but without all the black ink getting all over my hands.
I am a big subscriber to the idea that I can get on Facebook or Twitter and pick out what interests me most. The "marketplace of ideas." I see it and pick what I want. That may sound crazy, but really, even paper readers have been doing this a long time. We may look at the photos or a story or two we want, but most of us don't read the newspaper cover to cover.
That's why I think a lot of larger city papers have stories such as who the highest paid NBA player is, the controversy behind a bill proposed at city council or a deeper look into the local criminal justice system in a column style format. I much rather read about who the highest paid NBA player is than read a story which says "at city council Monday, the board voted to allow people to walk their dogs in the park." It would be more entertaining to read "Dogs in the Park? City workers will spend more time cleaning up after dogs than fixing your roads." Of course that's an exaggeration, but you get the idea.
News is becoming more and more entertainment. Is that to the detriment of society? Honestly, probably. But, I am not one to oppose it, as I am as guilty as all the other readers out there. It's the business. Yes, newspapers are a service, but they are also a business. Right now I guess we're in the business of informative entertainment.
I read something a while back about how the Internet has shortened our attention spans, in part, because there's so much information out there, that we subconsciously try to keep up with it — but, of course, we can't. So that's that newspapers face in trying to get the public's attention.
ReplyDeleteIn a way that's new ground, and in a way, it isn't. I often read old articles from around the 1900s, and you can tell that newspapers then had yet to be challenged by radio or, really, by anything. They're written in a way that takes time to absorb and process, which would appeal to readers in an age when they had time to read that and little else to distract them from it. As time goes by and radio and TV became popular, articles evolved, which no doubt at the time seemed like watering it down to the newspeople of the day. So in that respect, it's not a new thing.
What is new is that people can now envelop themselves entirely in their own reality if they want — in other words, have their own facts. You and I both see it on Facebook every day. That's why newspapers must continue to be arbiters of fact and truth. If they need to dress it up a little to attract attention, that's fine, as long as it stays sharp and ethical and doesn't devolve into clickbait.
There's no reason news can't be entertaining to the degree that a given story allows. It shouldn't be exploitative, to be sure, but being aggressively boring is not the antidote. The shift is simply the latest version of something that's been going on for a century.
It's an interesting discussion, at least.