John Oliver. (photo: HBO)
John
Oliver Explains Why Local Newspapers Are So Important
By Ryan Bort, Newsweek
09 August 16
In
case you haven't noticed, journalism as an industry isn't doing so great.
Staffs are getting cut. Budgets are getting slashed. Headlines are making
promises the contents of articles can't keep. Ads and auto-playing video are
everywhere. Underneath it all is some semblance of journalism, but it was
likely written and edited quickly. None of this is ideal. In fact, it reeks of
desperation—and that is because media outlets are desperate.
As John Oliver said on the most recent episode of Last Week
Tonight, “No one seems to have a perfect plan to keep newspapers
afloat." And, as he pointed out over the course of the episode's 15-minute
feature segment, the real-world impact of the decline of newspapers
is more significant than many of us realize.
A
subscription to your local paper was once as necessary an expense as gas,
water and electricity. Everyone paid for their journalism, which meant the
journalism industry was doing well. This wasn't all that long ago: Oliver
played a clip from 1993 of the editor of The Oregonian talking
about how the paper's staff has increased and employees have received yearly
raises every year for decades. Yes, it's hard to believe, but in the
not-so-distant past newspapers actually made money, like
a real business.
Then,
shortly after 1993, the internet arrived and with it came a
never-ending stream of "journalism" and "stories" and
"cat videos" that rendered ink-and-paper dailies pretty damn boring.
So bountiful was the content that the consumer became the curator as
well, and when cat video are an option, local court reporting is going to
slowly but surely fall by the wayside. Oliver pointed out a study of 200 papers
that found the number full-time statehouse reporters to have declined by
35 percent between 2003 and 2014.
When
people aren't as interested in local newspaper reporting, local newspapers are
going to be less interested in paying for it, which means there will be less
reporting, which, as Oliver pointed out last night, is a huge problem. He
started by playing a 2009 clip of David Simon, creator of The Wire and
a former Baltimore Sun reporter, speaking about this very
lack of reporting on local government. “The next 10 or 15 years in this
country are going to be a halcyon era for state and local political
corruption," he said. "It is going to be one of the great times to be
a corrupt politician. I really envy them. I really do.”
Or, as
Oliver put it, "Not having reporters at government meetings is like a
teacher leaving her room of seventh graders to supervise themselves.”
The
problem is that no one seems to know how get things back on track. Advertisers
are less interested in spending money on print than ever.
Between 2004 and 2014, newspapers lost $30 billion in print
revenue. At the same time, they gained $2 billion in digital revenue. Digital
advertisers need to see clicks to justify their investment, though, which has
led to vacuous, click-able content replacing actual reporting on real
issues, the latter of which costs more money, takes more time and, for the
average person mindlessly speeding through the internet, isn't as
interesting.
So
with all of this in mind, if you clicked on this article and made it through to
the end (advertisers love engagement time, too), thank you. Seriously.
C 2015 Reader Supported News
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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