"I’m so sick of the pity parties for the newspaper industry." That's how Samantha Swindler of The Times Tribune in Corbin, Ky., begins her latest column, prompted by journalists whining "about the doom and gloom in the newspaper industry and what ills will befall our country if the newspaper ever ceases to exist."
Following a "rolls eyes" line bracketed by asterisks, Swinder continued, "Nothing bad is going to happen to society if newspapers cease to exist, because good journalism will always be around. ... It’s that unearned sense of entitlement, that lack of adaptability or unwillingness to evolve, that loss of the whole American idea of ingenuity, that’s crippling the economy (not just the newspaper industry) and making me sick." She said newspapers should charge small fees for online content, and stop allowing aggregators to use their news without paying.
"We community newspapers are in a far better position than the major metros," Swindler acknowledged. "We still produce a relatively scarce product — very few media outlets are fighting over local coverage — and our readership demographic of older, rural residents will probably be some of the last to transition to online news sources. Plus, people in small communities have a greater attachment to local news than city dwellers."
But unless newspaper journalists at all levels lead the way toward change that brings online profitability, Swindler concludes, "The world is going to be stuck with a bunch of punk bloggers who have no scruples, who can’t write an open-records request, who post anything before it’s proven fact, who purposefully intermingle opinion and news because they’re more interested in being a 'personality' than a reporter, and who really will be the death of the journalism of accountability — which is all I’m really worried about." (Read more)
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