Yale-payments-local
Contents
"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.
Starr: An unbelievably hard problem
Starr: A public that is not informed is "a shaky basis for the idea of popular government." There are efforts to start up a statewide public radio network for New Jersey, and a web news operation that covers the state. Starr is helping with these. "But there is unbelievably hard problem. There is rot at the basis of American democracy and we have only begun to confront it."
Steven Wildman of Michigan state covered deep research he's done on local newspaper markets and news coverage. I'll try to get or link to his slides. One finding -- fewer and fewer local newspaper markets enjoy timely coverage of public meetings of key town boards.
George: Hunter College -- Economics of newspaper markets
Next Lisa George from Hunter College talks about the economics of newspaper markets.
A consequence of the first copy cost -- larger cities had better papers with higher readership. And the first-copy costs limit the number of papers that can survive in any market. It means that groups with minority tastes may be poorly served.
Technology opens up the market for a supply of niche and other content. Journalists compete with academics, non-profits and citizens; newspapers compete with TV, radio and blogs. It lowers the cost of production.
One of the results of high distribution costs is we have in the United States a lot of smaller papers isolated by the fact that it is hard to print and deliver information. So when you lower those costs we can get to a more preference-based marketplace -- differentiations by viewpoint rather than the delivery limits of geography. One result: Is more voices and more opposing views. People may start to choose the best rather than the most local -- it creates a market for superstars. So there will be fewer journalists and those that remain will receive much higher pay. They won't necessarily be built or made by the paper.
George next works to understand what resources will fund which aspects of journalism.
"The bundling piece will mostly be funded by advertisers in the future," she says. "This distinguishing the bundling value from the content value is central."
What you read affects what you do. It affectds consumers, producers and voters -- and it also has an effect on politicians, who worry about exposure -- that disciplines them.
Summary of trends and predictions: Fewer papers, more viewpoint differentiation, declining readership for local, expanding freelance market for journalism, especially for analysis, commentary and expertise, market for superstars.
Peter Shane on possible solutions
He served as executive director of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities. There were a couple of things central to the report. A key premise: Geography matters. Our democracy is organized geographically, so a breakdown in covering it that way is a problem. Another key premise: It is not just about news but about information more broadly. The key findings of the Knight report, released Oct. 20, 2009, revolve around the availability of information, the creation of capacity and access, and civic engagement.
There were three conversations in three venues need to go on together:
- Local media ecology makes available relevant information needed to govern. That's what journalism is about.
- Second discussion is about access to skills, resources, archives etc.
- Third conversations are about civic engagement. If people don't see reasons to engage, what's the info's power?
He says it is more important to talk about creating journalism institutions rather than saving them. He wants to say something more bluntly than the report said.
"Private markets for general local news, or access to the willing local readers of local news I don't think will ever generate sufficient resources to do what needs to be done in a democracy." There will be successful businessses in this area, but there won't be enough of them and those that exist will underinvest. Local news is a "non-rivalrous good" so it will have free rider problems. Shane's apparent inference -- there will have to be some public funding mechanism if we want enough journalism
Shane: Hopes that: "local journalism becomes part of the DNA at university education at all levels. It is something students want to do, it will develop their civic literacy and will develop into something that will help them in their careers."
- What are the information needs of communities in a democracy?
- Are they being met?
- If not, what shall we do about it?
Paul Bass: Why do we think that the news is dying?
Paul Bass of the New Haven Independent, says the news isn't dying. There is more news being covered in New Haven than every before. "All these reporters who are writing about the death of news are sitting in these media funeral parlors."
The Texas Tribune just started up last week.
"It's happening, and it is great and it is fun."
