Print journalism death spiral

A UC Berkeley journalism prof bemoans the upcoming newsroom layoffs at the San Francisco Chronicle as the coming end of investigative journalism. Who do we blame? Yahoo and Google.

Idolaters of Web-based news and information sites, "citizen"-produced journalism, and the blogosphere of individual self-publishers, often argue that old mainstays such as The Chronicle are, in fact, getting only what they deserve.

If "old" media cannot successfully adjust to the digital age, too bad, these critics argue. The corporate media were never that good in the first place, they say, and have failed us miserably in the past. There are plenty of alternatives on the Web to take traditional journalism's place, including the millions of bloggers opining about the news, not to mention powerful news aggregators such as Google and Yahoo whose computerized search robots harvest riches of news and other content provided by others -- and generate billions of dollars in annual profits for their owners.

Yep. That's the free market at work. Sorry for the long block quote. For one thing, I couldn't resist the "idolaters" jab. Or the backhanded slap to bloggers, who lack the validation of a "staff writer" title for a major metro paper (this despite the reverence that journalism professors hold for I.F. Stone, who self-published, as an "iconic muckraker" -- although it's not likely mentioned that the now-declassified VENONA intercepts show his connection with the KGB).

His solution? Yahoo and Google should pony up to make amends for stealing newspapers' web content.

I can't help but fear a future, increasingly barren of skilled journalists, in which Google "news" searches turn up not news, but the latest snarky rants from basement bloggers, fake news reports from government officials and PR cleverly peddled in the guise of journalism by advertisers wishing only to sell, sell, sell.

Ultimately, newspaper companies' transition from print to something new and different is going to be as difficult, costly and successful as the companies themselves want to make it. Journalism professors, on the other hand, don't have to answer to stockholders. I find it hard to believe that so many in my former line of work are only now waking up to the brave new world.

Tagged: Associations, Newspapers, Google, Yahoo.