Niche media

Thomas Jefferson famously said, "If it were left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

As everyone knows, the traditional journalism model is in trouble.

There's not much profit to be made selling newspapers filled with the same stories that are available for free to readers in a much more convenient format. And today's readership prefers an interaction with the news that papers alone simply can't provide.

Yet, as Jefferson points out, investigative journalism is vital in a democracy. And we're not going to maintain our current level of journalism by laying off reporters, which seems to be the cost-cutting trend.

Filling the void, Howard Kurtz pointed earlier this month, are high-priced newsletters and trade publications. Rather than write for the general public, which is the target of newspapers, these smaller outfits provide content for niche audiences willing to pay large sums for the information.

This jumped at me today as I read the New York Times online and flipped through the Politico, which is delivered to my desk each morning.

The New York Times covered President Obama's call to Congress for a climate change bill not with a staff reporter but with a syndicated article published by ClimateWire, one of those aforementioned high-priced newsletters.

And Politico detailed the lobbying battle over new climate change legislation in a front-page story written not by a staff reporter but by someone at the Center for Public Integrity.

Outsourcing — the future of journalism?

Comments

SAL said…
For what it's worth (exactly nothing, I'm sure), I have next to no interest in interacting with my news.
February 25, 2009
Anonymous said…
SAL doesn't realize it, but she participates in a good amount of social media. She comments on blogs. She listen to podcasts. You get the point.
February 25, 2009
SAL said…
point taken, but I was thinking more of newspapers, which was the subject at hand. My favorite thing re: news is the mug of coffee and the actual newspaper--the interacting being with the person I'm sitting next to as I comment on the news. So I'm not saying I don't want to interact in general...I guess just that you made the comment that today's newspaper readers want to interact with their news and I guess I still feel like I'm on the other side of that fence, for now, at least.
February 26, 2009
Anonymous said…
Tell me, though: is that the full extent of your daily news consumption? After your morning newspaper reading, is it another 23.5 hours before you learn of new happenings?
February 26, 2009
SAL said…
I listen to All Things Considered/Marketplace while making dinner, so, more like 10 hours, I guess. If something major happens usually somebody screams over from their cubicle at work.
I'm not saying I've never read the newspaper online, but it's not something I do every day.
February 27, 2009
Anonymous said…
You're making an unnecessary distinction when you say you don't read newspapers online. You read blogs! You listen to podcasts from journalists about music and TV!
February 27, 2009
SAL said…
I suppose I am making a false, old-fashioned, useless distinction, indeed. But, I wasn't counting listening to 2 guys dissect the latest episode of _The Office_ (the podcast I listened to this morning) as "news" or "journalism." So I was separating in my head my time spent interacting with "news" (narrowly defined by me as newspapers, whether print or online) and with "other media."
It's an interesting question, to be sure, about where those boundaries lie. I suppose I shall have to reconsider them.
February 27, 2009
Anonymous said…
And the Gossip Girl podcast that you listen to is hosted by women who work for the Tribune Company, which, although bankrupt, is a major media outlet!
February 27, 2009
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Incumbents didn't stand a chance

Image
Kamala Harris had an advantage in fundraising and campaign mobilization. Yet she got trounced. The lesson is that advertising and organizing doesn't matter in politics, right? Wrong. In the battleground states where she leveraged those resource advantages, Harris underperformed Joe Biden's 2020 results by 1.6 points . In the non-battleground states where she did not meaningfully compete, she underperformed 2020 by 3.9 points . This means that i n the places where the Harris campaign spent money and organized and knocked on doors, she did better.* Duh, it wasn't enough. Yet consider the political environment in 2024 for incumbent parties: across the world this year, each governing party facing election has lost vote share. Every single one. (This is the first time that had ever happened.) No one would suggest that Democrats pat themselves on the back when the result of their efforts is a Donald Trump victory. But look at this chart:**  The red dot is the 2024 Democrats, the ...
Read more

USC goes commando

Image
I've always thought USC cheerleaders were pretty classy (to the extent that such a classification is possible in the cheerleading world). They wear long-sleeved white turtlenecks, rather than the skimpy tops donned by most cheerleading teams. But yesterday I discovered that a USC Song Girl named Megan Ramer doesn't wear underwear. Britney Spears, are you responsible for this?
Read more

Paperweights have become paperweights

Image
When something goes unused or becomes obsolete, it's said to become a paperweight. Is your cellphone slow and out of date? It's become a paperweight. Is your laptop too slow to use? It's become a paperweight. Do you never use your Apple Vision Pro? It's become a paperweight. Weirdly, paper itself has become a paperweight. People do their work on laptops, tablets, and phones. Most homes don't have printers. Not only do we not need paperweights, we barely need paper!
Read more