If a tree falls in the woods and becomes a newspaper, does anyone care?
October 15, 2007 | 9:37 am
Roy Peter Clark, who has so many good things to say about writing and reporting (and gave one of the more entertaining lectures I saw during my two years at Goucher), makes me cringe when he says journalists have a moral duty to read newspapers — “emphasis on paper, not pixels.”
Clark argues that newspaper Web sites are unprofitable (with out acknowledging the complicity of the newspapers that run them) and notes that even he finds himself reading more news online (I personally read 3-5 papers almost in the ir entirety and snippets from as many as two dozen other papers on a daily basis — something that would be nearly impossible, expensive and the bane of trees everywhere if I relied on the dead tree product). So he is committing to read more hard copy newspapers, and here’s why:
There is one overriding question about the future of journalism that no one can yet answer: How will we pay for it? Who will pay for good reporters and editors? Who will pay to station them in statehouses, or send them to cover wars and disasters? Who will finance important investigations in support of the public’s health and safety?
What Clark and most of the rest of the dead tree establishment have failed to realize is that people will, one way or another, pay for good journalism. On the same day Clark moans about the death of investigative journalism unless we all buy products we don;t need or want, the New York Times reports on how markets are driving the creation of nonprofits to fill that very void: “Paul E. Steiger, who was the top editor of The Wall Street Journal for 16 years, and a pair of wealthy Californians are assembling a group of investigative journalists who will give away their work to media outlets.”
Indeed, if Clark wanted more good journalism, he’d be leading a boycott of the product which eats up millions of dollars each year in printing, production and distribution costs — money that could be better spent doing good journalism.
Tags: Journalism, Newspapers
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October 16, 2007 at 9:46 am
[...] Roy Peter Clark, who has so many good things to say about writing and reporting (and gave one of the more entertaining lectures I saw during my two years at Goucher), makes me cringe when he says journalists have a moral duty to read newspapers — “emphasis on paper, not pixels. … [...]
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October 16, 2007 at 9:51 am
[...] Roy Peter Clark, who has so many good things to say about writing and reporting (and gave one of the more entertaining lectures I saw during my two years at Goucher), makes me cringe when he says journalists have a moral duty to read newspapers — “emphasis on paper, not pixels. … [...]