Why you probably hate the news media and some journalists

This blog post started out as an explanation to my friends and family in Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio, why their newspapers had become shadows of their former selves. Why their newspapers were so thin. Why news coverage was so shallow. Why they felt like they weren't getting their money's worth.

But really, we can't get there without first talking about where we were 30, 40, 50 years ago, in the Golden Age of media, before the internet.

To get up to the present, where most people say they do not trust the news media, we have to talk first about

• The impact of cable news on news content and credibility
• The impact of the internet on news content and credibility
• And the impact of news media arrogance on credibility (but please, don't jump to the end; work with me on this). 

The Way It Was--Highly Profitable

Newspapers had more than 100% market penetration into the 1960s. That is, total circulation exceeded the number of households (detailed in How I Ran My Newspaper Monopoly.) Today total newspaper circulation represents less than one-tenth of the U.S. population.

The benevolent virus that is saving the news media

This is from my other blog newsentrepreneurs.com

 The network effects that destroyed traditional news organizations are benefiting digital startups, which can grow virally and generate outsized impact in their communities. 

From Unimedliving

My teaching colleagues here are experts on the economics of the media industry, and we recently had a lively debate on how to reverse the financial crisis of journalism. The collapse of the industry's business model is endangering the institution of journalism-the Fourth Estate, a counterweight to power--by eliminating journalists and media coverage, especially for local media.


It's a question that was explored recently by Ken Doctor at Nieman Lab in his report, "Newspapers are shells of their former selves. So who’s going to build what comes next in local?"

Doctor details a number of initiatives by non-profit and for-profit organizations aimed at filling the gaps in local news coverage involving hundreds of media outlets. But using the standard industry metrics, it doesn't a appear to be sufficient to plug the gaps in the short term without significant changes in the way news media do business. Entire communities are losing news coverage of any kind, a pillar of democratic institutions.

Dark days at the Baltimore Sun

A column in Politico.com captures the essence of the newspaper crisis. The Baltimore Sun, which had 420 editorial employees a decade ago, now has one third that total.

Having previously shuttered bureaus in London, Beijing, and Moscow, the paper in the last few months closed local bureaus, including the one in Annapolis – Maryland's state capital.

More at "Dark day at Baltimore Sun, say critics - Michael Calderone - POLITICO.com" -

When I arrived in Baltimore in 1995, the Sun had some truly great writers on their staff. It was a paper that I had to read and enjoyed reading. In the 11 years following, the paper had four different publishers and at least that many different editors as the corporate influence, first at the LA Times group and then at Tribune Co., made itself felt.

The Sun is a classic example of how corporate ownership helped speed the demise of large metropolitan dailies.