Ahh... I Feel Better Now

I've been thinking a lot about work lately. Mostly because I spend most of my time there, but also because the fate of newspapers is something that people who work for newspapers like to think about. A lot.

I'm always up for chatter about the state of the press.

Today a friend of mine sent me this link to a Matt Taibbi piece about how while everyone was worrying about why Britney shaved her head, our media was neglecting stories about our president's 2008 proposed budget, which would make Bush's tax cuts permanent and hopes to repeal the Estate Tax.

Rich people's kids get richer. You know the story.

Immediately I was incensed by this article. I didn't read the byline at first (I thought it was some random blogger), so I didn't immediately realize it was written by a journalist, but even so, I was still pretty annoyed by it. And I like Matt Taibbi. Mostly.

But I was annoyed because I thought of all the people who probably complained about Britney and Anna Nicole making the headlines and taking the top stories on the news and I wondered, How many people who complained about it subscribe to newspapers? To magazines? How many read the periodicals that actually support solid reporting and investigative journalism?

As newspapers' and magazines' circulations continue to fall and ad revenue remains flat, more and more journalists all over the country fear the future of their roles at newspapers, or worse, are laid off. Editors who refuse to make more cuts are fired.

We gotta sell newspapers. And you know what? Britney can probably sell more newspapers than solid investigative journalism can. Not to mention there are fewer and fewer reporters doing investigative journalism because, well, in addition to those jobs being slashed, the rest of the reporters are busy covering Britney's latest rehab stint in the hopes that the paper sells a few more copies and makes a few more bucks so they might prove their worth and get to keep their jobs in the next round of cuts.

One of the best newspaper companies in this county, Knight Ridder, is gone now. It was sold last year because shareholders decided they weren't making enough money. Their jobs as newspapers in the Knight Ridder chain, it turns out, wasn't to provide quality journalism but rather to make shareholders more wealthy. (Reminder here that Knight Ridder reporters Warren Stroebel and Jonathan Landay were two of only a handful of reporters to doggedly call bullshit on WMDs and the justification for the War in Iraq.)

What did that mean to Knight Ridder shareholders? Nothing. What did shareholders think of the 84 Pulitzer Prizes the chain won? Nothing.

Which is why I think my parent company has it all figured out. Do they vie for Pulitzers? Not really. Is investigative journalism, First Amendment protections or government watch dog reporting on their list of priorities? Nope, nope and nope. Their sole concern is to make money.

They've figured it out that people don't care about Pulitzer Prizes or buy newspapers for their stellar investigative work on the plight of neglected soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital.

Why waste money on that when everybody just wants to see Britney's shaved head? That's what sells newspapers.

Anyway, if you're up late or have DVR, Frontline has a great series called News Wars: What's Happening to the News about some of this. Forget reading newspapers, I've been glued to my television watching people talk about newspapers.

End Rant

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