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Former American Press sportswriter Carl Dubois blogs about the games people play, in and out of sports, and the people you meet between and outside the lines.

Carl is an award-winning reporter and columnist living in the Willamette Valley in northwest Oregon, near Portland. He is sports editor of the News-Register newspaper in McMinnville, Ore.

Rocky without a sequel

Posted March 3, 2009 at 10:32 pm
Filed Under People, Sports | Leave a Comment

BATON ROUGE — The Rocky Mountain News published its last edition Friday. Since learning the newspaper’s fate Thursday afternoon, I’ve struggled to put my thoughts and emotions into words.

Here’s what I came up with: I can’t give you a comprehensive breakdown of why newspapers are in trouble, don’t want to get into a debate about liberal vs. conservative media, don’t know the people in Denver well enough to put a human face on the story for you. You can find that on the link in the first paragraph.

I also don’t want to tell you to feel sorry for newspaper folks who have lost and will lose their jobs. Thousands of people in all walks of life are in the unemployment line, and they all feel the same sting of pride and worry for themselves and their families.

No, I want to focus on the big picture. I want to tell you to be worried about what this means for you. This is about how much more difficult it will be for you to navigate your future with fewer and fewer newspapers, with fewer and fewer options for real information.

I’m not necessarily talking about newspapers as printed matter, although there’s a sadness inherent in seeing broadsheets and tabs disappear. I’m talking about newspapers as news organizations, about what you’re losing as they become mere shadows of their former selves.

I’m not the only one talking about this. Consider this piece by Debra Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle, another troubled newspaper.

Consider the response to that piece by Angela MacIsaac, a former Canadian sportswriter now working in public relations and helping her company find its future online:

“And I hear this from people who say they care about news. They look to the site-rich Internet for salvation, unaware that the decline of newspapers means that those shiny new Web sites are linking to fewer real news stories,” MacIsaac wrote on a journalism message board. “What looks like more choice isn’t. It’s more doors leading to fewer rooms.

“When a newspaper dies, you don’t get a comprehensive periodical to fill the void. You get an informational vacant lot into which passers-by can throw their junk.”

Let me remind you: MacIsaac is someone who fully embraces the Internet, and even she knows what we’re losing, now and in the coming months and years.

The business model for newspapers is broken, and until someone figures out the longterm answer, here’s what you can be sure of: Stories will go uncovered. Big ones. Small ones. Less competition has usually meant less thorough coverage, and now we’re about to see more unreported news than at any time in my lifetime, and probably yours.

Newsrooms are a shell of what they used to be, and the people left trying to cover all of the beats can no longer make those extra three or four phone calls that make all the difference. They might not admit it publicly, but they’re cutting corners out of necessity, and that’s not a good thing for news gathering.

Don’t tell me about blogs filling the void, at least not immediately. Where do bloggers (and yes, I am one) get most of their news, the substance from which to launch their opinions? Newspapers and other print media. Think I’m wrong? Read this take by a major-market sports blogger about what the future holds for him and others like him.

Blogs aren’t the only ones who let newspapers do the heavy lifting. Countless radio and TV newscasts will be much harder to piece together without the morning paper giving news directors, producers and “the talent” a road map for beginning their work day.

During my years as a sports reporter and columnist for the print version of the American Press (1983-97), there were many times I heard my work being used as source material — and sometimes quoted verbatim, with no credit to me or the paper — on TV and radio in the Lake Charles area.

Those “reporters” will have to figure out the story of the day on their own without newspapers. The ongoing weakening and collapse of newspapers around the country will make it harder for other forms of media to piggyback on the work of print journalists, and ultimately you, the reader, will suffer the most.

Who’s going to sit through those boring school board, drainage board, dock board and other municipal meetings to make sure they’re plugged in when the major, sexy stories emerge from those governing bodies? Who’s going to spend the time and money chasing rumors, separating fact from fiction, ferreting out news from Internet gossip, even when it means much of the work leads to dead ends? Who will value the news-gathering process enough to appreciate when there’s no payoff for the long hours and money spent because it’s the cost of doing business and making sure you’re accurate and fair, and you’re leaving no stone unturned?

Who’s going to translate the language of spin and public relations, the Doublespeak of deception, so you’ll have no trouble understanding that this “voluntary donation” is in reality a surcharge? Who’s going to make sure the story coming out of Big Corporate Entity and Big University through their public relations arms aren’t assumed to be the whole story? Who’s going to show news judgment and restraint, so you’re not left to try to filter through hundreds of Internet sites and posts per day hoping to find the story hidden inside so much rumor, innuendo and flat-out falsehood, much of which is posted just for the fun of it?

Who’s going to have 100 or more years of tradition and prestige backing them, the resources to stand up to bullying and the threat of a lawsuit so you get as much truth as you need? Who’s going to have the savvy and understanding of media law sufficient to cover the news without risking a lawsuit with every story they publish?

Eventually, someone will figure out the business model, and the pendulum will swing back toward responsible, literate news being something of value, but it’s going to get worse before it gets better. An informed America gives itself enough trouble making its way in the world. An uninformed America is a train wreck waiting to happen while everyone is too busy updating their MySpace and Facebook pages to realize the full extent of what they no longer know, of what will pass for knowledge but be no more than Internet candy.

If you watch “The Wire,” you probably know who David Simon is. If you think I am being an alarmist, read this piece by Simon and let it sink in. Then, multiply its implications times every American city, times every agency that needs watchdogs, and every place corruption can take root where there is no transparency.

The New Republic has many words on the subject, in case you need further convincing.

While everyone is all thumbs and all a-Twitter keeping their friends and the rest of us informed about their hourly business (”Time for my coffee break! brb!”), when everyone is either watching a reality show or trying to get their own, when the empty calories of “information” are accepted as “news,” America will become weaker because America will be less informed.

When people aren’t even aware they have begun to put too much stock in Wikipedia, with its amateurish writing, often-hijacked facts and dubious sense of what’s important, will they miss what the daily or weekly newspaper gives them? Not until it’s too late, I suspect.

The Internet is a wonderful place. It’s how these words of mine are getting from my mind and fingertips to your eyes. But the Internet is often like a series of specialty shops and cottages, places where you go to get what you know you’ll find there. Newspapers are more structured like shopping malls, where you can find a bit of everything, something for everyone.

How many times have you picked up a newspaper and discovered the most interesting story within its pages was something you had no idea you’d read until you saw the headline? On the Internet, it’s often impossible to just stumble upon something like that, and you can go for days without an unexpected but satisfying story finding you. People who check their bookmarked sites every day often don’t have the pleasant surprise of turning the page and finding the story that made reading the paper worthwhile that day.

The Internet has helped create the perception that everyone with a keyboard can write, so everyone can report, and everyone can be a citizen journalist. Most of what passes for citizen journalism, including message-board posting, indicates a point of view that can’t even grasp the concept of open-mindedness and objectivity. There aren’t enough lawyers in the world to deal with the problems citizen journalism will lay at the feet of those who rely upon it.

One of the most widely held beliefs of my lifetime is that information is power, and yet we’ve reached a place where we’ve come to belief that information should be free. After 25 years of experience at daily newspapers, I can tell you this about free information: You’ll get what you pay for.

Someone has to subsidize the hard work of real reporting. Who will it be?

Some think we’re headed toward an era of benefactors sponsoring a handful of journalists to cover the news in their city or region. Who will these benefactors be, and what will be their agenda? The broad advertising base that once supported newspapers — classified advertising, legal notices and major corporate ads — were the right mix to keep enterprising journalism afloat. Journalism with one or two major sponsors? A shaky premise.

How many stories won’t be pursued for fear of alienating your major sponsor? How many deceitful practices will go unnoticed because there aren’t enough reporters competing for the scoop to ensure corruption will eventually be discovered? What will you need to know that you won’t know?
Worse, when you don’t even realize how much you don’t know, you could be forced to make many major decisions on the basis of the most limited information ever available to you.

That should scare you.

The Rocky Mountain News is dead. Other major daily newspapers will be gone before Christmas. Most of those remaining will be or already are pale imitations of their once-proud selves.

You should be worried, not because of the thousands of journalists out of work, but because of what it means for you and your children.

Sorry for the downer, but I would be remiss not to tell you what I think is happening and will happen. I hope I’m still around to write an upbeat follow-up when enough people realize what they’ve lost — and the market demands and finds a way to make real, uncompromising information a priority again.

Unfortunately, I don’t think enough people will miss it until it’s gone.

My parting shot: Ed Stein’s last cartoon for the Rocky Mountain News.