Taylor But Not Local Government
Newspapers are in accelerated decline except for a very few like The Wall Steet Journal, Washington Post, and New York Times which are read nationally and internationally.
Big chains have gobbled up thousands of local papers and have decimated their newsrooms in an attempt to profit from the remains. I would bet some don’t even have newsrooms anymore. Just a few columnists and the occasional stringer writing from home.
The habit of reading a newspaper in the morning is dead in America. And once the habit is lost, nothing seems to bring it back. People no longer want to pay for news so how does anyone think newspapers can succeed?
The same goes for advertising. Where once there were ads throughout the print editions, now only the government seems to be there. When was the last time anyone bought a paper to read a government ad.
But newspapers don’t help matters much. Gannett did one of their yearly purges of reporters from their local papers last December. That has become a ritual with them and the other chains. That is one less reason to subscribe to what I have started to call the five-minute news break (since it takes at most five minutes to read a local paper.)
It appears USA Today, Gannett’s flagship national paper, will hire two reporters exclusively to cover Taylor Swift and Beyonce`. Their local papers no longer have government reporters but somehow, they believe devoting two full time reporters to two entertainers is justified. According to an article in The Washington Post quoting Gannett’s chief content officer, “Taylor Swift is an artist and businesswoman whose work has tremendous economic, cultural and social significance.”
I guess local city councils, county commissions, and school boards can’t cut it for a reporter, but Ms. Swift and Ms. Knowles can. Are you kidding me?
Do these journalists/businesspeople believe that newspaper readers are going to buy their paper because of it? If I really want the scoop on those gals there are plenty of other sources including People Magazine. Gannett can feed those frilly pieces to their locals so we septuagenarians, octogenarians, and nonagenarians, the bulk of their readership, can get the latest poop on these entertainers between watching old movies on TCM. I can tell you teens and twenty somethings are not reading their rag.
Newspapers are dying and coverage of pop stars isn’t going to bring it back. And in truth not even local reporters will do the trick. There is a dash of hope with a solely digital product but, in my opinion, it must be a not-for-profit model. It also has to be local in scope.
That may sound a bit self-serving because of my own involvement in the digital publication, Friends & Neighbors of Martin County. But the reason many of us still want to report and write about local news is that we care about our communities. Our publication list has grown to 27,000, there is an appetite for information.
I wish more young people cared enough to read a local paper in print or digitally…and be willing to pay something for it. The lack of facts has caused much of the political breakdown we have. An objective presenter can act as the guardrail so that no government or politician can lie about or obfuscate the truth when speaking.
Covering entertainers and their latest song or love affair won’t help save American journalism.
