My beef with the news

I have a former professor who gives a "Why newspapers are important" speech every year, around this time. His argument isn't that the news is important (although he would never argue news isn't important), it's that newspapers are important. Newspaper websites don't fit into this equation; only the physical act of reading a newspaper will do.

My problem with this mindset is it is one of stagnation. It's a "This is the way I know, so this is the right way," way of thinking. The media industry is struggling, and it's because the industry isn't evolving in time with customer demand.

The need for the industry's evolution is being thwarted by the struggles of the industry. Less people are trying to do more work. Newspaper reporters and editors are taking more unpaid vacation and working less hours while trying to put together a quality product, and the newspapers are suffering. Some reporters go out into the field as reporters, photographers, and multimedia experts, yet stories are still being dumped from the paper onto the website. And, newspapers are missing out on breaking news to Twitter and sites willing to print stories as they happen.

For example- I've been known to freelance deadline stories for papers. At one such paper, my deadline was 7:45, or a worst case scenario time of 8:30. These deadline times were given to me the first day I wrote a story on deadline.. With editor turnover, my deadline moved to an unknown time, but at 7:45 stories were deemed too late to make the next day's morning edition. And, by 8 p.m., the editor becomes unreachable by their office extension. So, suddenly, news happening in the field has to be concluded by 7:30, or it won't make the next day's newspaper at all. The news that happened yesterday will be in tomorrow's edition and possibly on the web some time tonight. So, the people who read the newspaper will get the news on Wednesday, after they've probably already consumed it from the television and web.

Another good example is Patrick Swayze's death. I learned via text message last night that he was dead. Then, I logged into Facebook and had tons of status updates from my friends, and an updated note from the New York Times about the death. The Times isn't above covering breaking news. It isn't above reaching out to people through text messages, emails, or social networking sites. In fact, I usually go to the Times site, because they update breaking news stories as they happen and is a reliable source of news. Other newspaper sites I read didn't post the story until well after I went to bed.

Something has to happen, and it has to happen fast, because most local papers are being left in the dust during this media revolution.

Also, if there are glaring errors in this post, please let me know. I've been cutting back on coffee and sugar, so right now I'm in the midst of a mind haze of exhaustion.

Comments

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My dad subscribed to one of our local Tampa newspapers. He complained that the news was 2 days old or more by the time it got into the paper. I will be writing a blog about this at some point: the news media cannot survive without money and the print side of the new media cannot get the information out fast enough. With things like Tweets and RSS feeds information can reach us faster than ever before. The Kanye West/Taylor Swift story was old news by the end of the night on Sunday night.