Yale-payments-local
"Journalism and the New Media Media Ecology: Who Will Pay the Messengers?"
Preserving Local Journalism
What follows is an honest attempt to document a two-day conference at Yale Law School, "Journalism and the New Media Ecology: Who Will Pay the Messenger?" The reporter is Bill Densmore of the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism. As with a similar in-the-moment report from a gathering at Harvard University two weeks ago, I make no warranty about the accuracy of direct quotes -- captured on the fly -- but make a promise to have supplied appropriate context as best as possible. The sessions are being videotaped. Consult that source for the final history of this event.
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- What will support news?
- The collaborative idea
- [MORNING SESSION: The overview
This afernoon's first session is broken into two pieces to address "preserving local journalism." The first segment is painting the dimensions of the callenge, and the second segment proposing possible solutions. "Domension" panelists includien Paul Starr, of Princeton University, Steven Wildman, of Michigan State Univesity and Lisa George of Hunter College. "Solutions" panelists include Peter Shane, executive director of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities and Paul Bass of the New Haven Independent.
Paul Starr -- Worries that the loss of major newspapers will diminish the role of the watchdog. Without it, the political system will become more entrenched and non-responsive. He worries about what Robert Reich calls: "The succession of the affluent" from their bedroom-type communities. "Without a public, how do you have political accountability, how do you have an accountable government."
New Jersey suffers a chronic news deficit because it is sandwiched between Philadelphia and New York -- its two great cities lie outside of its borders. Citizens learn little about Jersey in coverage skewed to New York and Pennsylvania. The state's newspapers used to compensate, but are now in free fall, shells of what they formerly are. The 45 reporters who used to coverage the state house is down to 15 and the two biggest papers -- the Trenton and Newark papers -- have merged their coverage.
