More on Why Newspapers are Failing

In an earlier post I discussed the role of bias, dishonesty, and political favoritism and pandering in the decline of what we used to call the “Fourth Estate of Government”. The Fourth Estate was back when newspapers came in all kinds; some good, some bad, some conservative and some liberal, some reputable and some yellow press. Back when there was diversity of all kinds in newspapers, they were a basic institution in America. They were our source of news, political commentary, sports, weather, classified advertising, and funnies.

Here is a post showing how their fall from grace was led by bias and personal agendas instead of truth and public service. source

There is a simple, and free to the taxpayers, way for many of the newspapers to recover financial health and profitability. It involves listening to the customers and then giving them what they want. Not a new or novel concept but a basic rule of business survival.

Instead, most US newspapers, with a very few exceptions, print what they want to further the liberal agenda and the Democratic Party and then try to force it on their customers. Well, the customers are reacting and leaving the newspapers by the millions. For example, the New York Times recently had to mortgage its building to meet expenses.

More on Newspaper Failures

There are other basic reasons newspapers are failing. They too involve arrogance and ignoring the customers’ wishes. As the new media grew, newspapers failed to adjust and respond in an appropriate manner. No longer secure in their advertising income (competition from radio, television, the Internet, etc.), rather than seeking new business models in a changing business, the newspapers stuck to the old models and let quality in all aspects decline.

A watershed event in newspapers’ evolution was the Watergate Scandal. Careers were made, movies were made, and one could be a star overnight. What was lost was the triangle of trust between the public, the government, and our free press. Reporters and editors cast aside good judgment and went for the “big expose”. Fair play, objectivity, and professionalism were abandoned in favor of “getting the bad guys and getting them first”.

This was combined with a decline in the quality and intellectual capacity of most reporters and editors. One didn’t need a degree on journalism from a good school, one didn’t need the years of experience starting from the bottom, and working your way up, all one needed was a chance for that big, career-making story about getting the bad guys.

Funny thing though, this kind of appeal to “glamour, justice, and heroism” without qualifications and experience gained by long, hard work appealed to a particular type of people—shallow, inexperienced, amoral or immoral, and self focused.

And thus it was that liberals took over the ranks of reporters and editors across the nation. As the shift to liberalism took place, the nature of the “bad guys” shifted from the crooks of Watergate to anyone who disagreed with the liberal agenda of political correctness, left wing politics, and blame America first policies. Now the enemies, the bad guys, were those who disagreed. Arrogance, self interest, political bias, and personal agendas had replaced professionalism, experience, patriotism, and a sense of fair play. Reporters and editors no longer had knowledge and experience. As a result of changing newspapers, journalism schools responded and mirrored what modern reporters had become. The result was more and more new journalism graduates essentially uneducated and unprepared to provide newspaper services the customers’ wanted.

Concurrently with the growth of arrogance and incompetence in the ranks of newspaper employees, there grew increasing separation from the customer base and from the advertisers. Together the customers and the advertisers generated the revenue for newspapers. Arrogance led the newspapers to resist change or lower costs and to expect the customers to continue buying newspapers and the advertisers to continue paying for it all. As always happens, when you ignore the customer, sales of advertized articles and services declined. When this happened, advertizing revenues decreased. And the downward spiral had begun.

We don’t know how long it will be before a new business model of customer satisfaction, professionalism, unbiased reporting and editing, and educated, competent reporters and editors returns. When it does, newspapers focused on the customer, sensitive to advertisers’ needs, and with perspectives across the political spectrum will prosper.

No amount of government bailouts, corporate welfare, suppression of the competition, or liberal laws and regulations will accomplish the rebirth of newspaper journalism. This rebirth has to come from within the industry and it has to come as outlined above.