'Time for grown-ups to intervene'

This week we've seen a couple of strong pushbacks against the ideas, seemingly gathering speed, that newspapers are toast and that what they have produced will be entirely replaceable in the new-media world.

The first came from my former McClatchy boss, Howard Weaver, who took strong issue with the notion that the new-media world has ready-to-go answers for for the jobs that newspaper staffs do now. Here's a taste:

"... The digitalistas who suggest those newsrooms can be readily duplicated or replaced act like willful children, unmindful that substance, craft and capacity matter in the real world, that no group of 10,000 monkeys has ever written Shakespeare, that 98 of the 100 most important pieces of public service journalism last year flowed from professionals in the newsrooms they recklessly disregard.

This is a fool’s game. It’s time for grown-ups to intervene, to end the debate and move beyond the empty calories of nostalgia and the masturbatory fantasies of a theory-based future."

By the way, I disagree with my friend and ex-boss in his disdain for the idea of philanthropy-funded journalism. I do agree it's not the Holy Grail and certainly not going to be any kind of salvation for old-time journalism. But it's a mistake, I think, to take it off the table. Philanthropy already does provide for some great journalism (hello, NPR, hello, ProPublica). It might have a small role but in many, many places.

But back to the main point. A widely admired grown-up, Steve Yelvington, took Howard's bait and reminded everyone today that newspapers are not only not dead; they're still huge money-making machines.

"I really hate being in a position of defending the newspaper industry. It's much more fun, and in the big picture perhaps more productive, to kick it in the pants. But I have to call bullshit on the "Newspapers Are Dead" meme.

No, they're not. Neither is print. Schadenfreude and gravedancing do not advance a rational conversation about how journalism will work going forward, and irrational negativity will not help us invent the future."

I am still relatively new to the culture of new media thinkers, but I believe I understand some of what drives them past realty in declaring newspapers dead. First, many would say newspapers are on the road to death and are traveling down it at a pretty good clip. Second, there's a culture of bold prediction in this group; you can see now there are constant self-references in blogs and tweets to their early, correct predictions of the past. Finally, some portion (I believe) would not be at all unhappy with legacy media's thorough demise, out of a belief that their ways and actions have been so injurious that it's better to start afresh. (And out of a belief that the networked world of the future will come up with a much better brand of journalism.)

My own guess: There's a decent chance that this better future will come, at least in many respects. But I can also imagine that it won't, or will have other faults that will exceed the current ones. I also believe the heart of today's journalism (public-service and watchdog journalism) is anything but malignant. Are there exceptions to this? Yes, but they're rare, and I don't see any near-term replacement for it.