And now, your “local” news…
The two-year-old Web site pasadenanow.com, has posted a job opening for journalists in India to cover news in this wealthy city just outside Los Angeles. The editor said it can be done from afar now that weekly Pasadena City Council meetings can be watched over the Internet. And he said the idea makes business sense because of India’s lower labor costs.
The founding fathers who felt freedom of the press important enough to include it in the first amendment to the Bill of Rights must be rolling over in their graves.
And you can’t just chalk it up to it “being California.” Right here in Michigan’s state capital, the Booth Newspapers chain has decided to gut its Lansing bureau by forcing out seasoned veterans of political and government news coverage.
Journalism has lost its focus. Who is to blame? Just about everybody.
Corporate owners are to blame because they are focusing on the bottom line. When you look at a newspaper’s structure, every division brings in money directly, except the newsroom. So where do they cut the budget first? You guessed it: the newsroom.
Journalism students are to blame because the current crop is full of the entitlement generation. They expect a “dream job” where they get to write on the subjects they choose all while making great money and leading fun lifestyles – right out of college.
Journalism schools are to blame because they are putting too much emphasis on how to write for the Web, how to post a blog or how to create a YouTube video production on-line. You can’t ignore technological advances, but no matter the medium of delivery, a good story is one that is well-reported and well-written.
Many journalists are to blame because too many of them are content to report on the news by reading press releases and contacting sources by phone or e-mail. They have lost their drive to get out on the street and actually sniff out the real newsworthy stuff.
And alas, readers and viewers are to blame because we don’t protest enough. The 24-hour news cycle held so much promise because of all the time and space journalists would have available to them. Instead, the airwaves are filled with nonstop tabloid journalism that sounds more like a script from a nighttime soap opera than an actual newscast.
When we do protest, we tend to send the wrong message, telling newspapers that the Internet is where we are headed. A recent letter to the editor of the Lansing State Journal read: “Your product is delivering less and less local and national news. Where are the interesting articles that used to be published? The sections of the paper are getting very thin and lack content due to the ads. We plan to cancel our 35-year subscription and find news of interest on the Internet.”
If you want to affect change at an organization, never tell them you’ve given up on them already. And remember, the Internet is outstanding at making the world a smaller place, but it’s still not local. Just ask the folks in Pasadena reading about their city council meetings under a byline from India.
May 17th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
We’ve seen outsourcing before in the journalism. FOX Sports (Insert City Name Here) has been doing that for years from Washington state. It even reuses anchors, staggering markets to reduce the chance of seeing the same person giving two different sportscasts. And let’s not forget that newspapers and wire services have been outsourcing for years through the use of “stringers.” Hell, even word of Custer’s demise was telagraphed to the world from a stringer in Bismarck, ND, via the NY Herald. (I know because I’ve seen the plaque marking the spot where it happened.)
I think journalism — newspapers particularly — is lost because it forgot how to be relevant to readers. I pick up a newspaper not because it delivers the news (I get that from other sources, and a lot faster) but because I want to know what the next layer is. Who’s BSing who or how a particular issue fits the big picture.
If monkeys could read and write, someone would train them to be scribes. Journalists give context and background to what’s going on, or at least they should. Though, I would be hard pressed to find much context and background in today’s journalism.
May 18th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
Bottom lines and a complacent public have hurt the industry, but so has the advent of the Internet. Now anyone who has ever had a romantic notion about writing can deem themselves a “journalist” and that’s who ends up doing that stuff.
No real journalist would ever want to sit at a desk and report on a council meeting let alone an overseas council meeting. The journalists that I know much prefer to go out and get the story and would bypass this kind of job posting.
The fact that this posting is out there is pathetic and the paper that’s doing it shouldn’t be considered a news organization, but an advertising pamphlet with “informational content.”
May 19th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Seems every one is looking for cheap labor.What happened to pride in our jobs, hard work and the satisfaction of a job well done.No one from Corp. down cares cares about that. We are in a sad state of affairs.
May 21st, 2007 at 10:11 am
I wonder how loudly the editorial board would howl were it ever suggested that their function likewise be outsourced overseas.
May 29th, 2007 at 9:34 am
This latest illustration of economics-driven journalism shows just how far a once-noble American institution has sunk. When stories of journalistic palgarism rate a three-paragraph mention below the fold on Page 26; when entire stories are based on anonymous sources and second-hand quotes; and when we. the consumer (listener, viewer, reader), continue to accept the “news” pro-offered by organizations who have made good journalism secondary to usery-level profiteering, one can only reflect upon a somewhat liberal intepretation of a quote attributed to several people (sorry I can’t source it more directly — poor reporting on my part): “In a democracy, people get the kind of government/journalism they deserve.” Only when we stop accepting the product put before us and insist on more responsible, more focused, more facts-based news reporting will we begin to work our way back toward “real” journalism and “real” news. “The fault, dear reader, is in ourselves.”