Quote of the day

Mr Yglesias might not be too pessimistic about the crisis of overproduction in journalism because, to put it bluntly, he is the crisis of overproduction in journalism.

—DiA, Does the left need bigger ideas?

True Financial Injustice

Andrew linked to James Fallows' guide to impressive journalism.

As Fallows says, his first NPR link about the bail-bond system is absolutely riveting.

Give it a listen as you get some work done.

Sad news

Walter Cronkite has died.

Wait a sec—Cronkite was still alive? Aged 92, da-yum. Good night, sir.

Newspapers and ad competition

I wrote about this months ago, but Megan explains better:

Journalism is not being brought low by excess supply of content; it's being steadily eroded by insufficient demand for advertising pages. For most of history, most publications lost money, or at best broke even, on their subscription base, which just about paid for the cost of printing and distributing the papers. Advertising was what paid the bills. To be sure, some of that advertising is migrating to blogs and similar new media. But most of it is simply being siphoned out of journalism altogether. Craigslist ate the classified ads. eHarmony stole the personals. Google took those tiny ads for weird products. And Macy's can email its own damn customers to announce a sale.

We could herd every new media type into camps and force them to become shorthand/typists, and newspapers would still be in just as bad shape as they are now. We could take down Google News, and it would barely register in their bottom lines. Even if every newspaper and magazine in the country entered into a binding cartel agreement not to put more than a smidgen of free content on their websites, newspapers would still be losing money, and closing by the dozens. It's the economics, stupid.

Still dead...

What's killing the newspaper business? Advertising competition.

This may be a banal insight, but I hadn't quite put the pieces together until recently.

Firstly, realize that the bulk of newspaper revenue doesn't come from subscriptions or newsstands. It comes from selling ads.

Thought experiment: Suppose all newspapers cease printing and are henceforth only available electronically. Further suppose that anyone who might wish to read a newspaper has a laptop, Kindle DX, or other good way of accessing them. Why will the ad revenue for these electronic papers never reach the ad revenue they once got in print?

Compared to their portion of the print-with-ads market (shared with magazines and the yellow pages, mostly), newspapers are only a small corner of the web-with-ads market. There are very many new, high-traffic websites that run ads.

The market for ad revenue has limits. Companies who advertise only wish to field a certain portion of revenue for it. Often, competition with the products and services of other companies will cause them to advertise more, but only to a point. Eventually, there are diminishing returns and neither they nor their competitors will increase ad spending.

Electronic newspapers now have to compete in a wider advertising market, meaning a smaller chunk of available ad revenue will be directed at them than was the case when they had a relatively large portion of the print ad market.

Additionally, major newspapers require a substantial staff for quality reporting and editing. Any website that can get traffic with lower operating costs is at a competitive advantage and can afford to offer web ad space at lower rates than newspapers would prefer.

Nerdprom (aka White House Correspondents' Dinner)

Part II
Wanda I
Wanda II

America's dying newspapers

"In the main it is correct to say that the decreasing number of newspapers in our larger American cities is due to the enormously increased cost of maintaining great dailies.  This has been found to limit the number which a given advertising territory will support.  It is a fact too that there are few other fields of enterprise in which so many unprofitable enterprises are maintained.  There is one penny daily in New York which has not paid a cent to its owners in twenty years during that time its income has met its expenses only once.  Another of our New York dailies loses between four and five hundred thousand dollars a year if well founded report is correct but the deficit is cheerfully met each year.  It may be safely stated that scarcely half of our New York morning and evening newspapers return an adequate profit." —The Atlantic monthly, 1918

Joe the Palinifier

Larison:

First, this does say something important about the miserable state of the conservative blogosphere as a journalistic medium, and it also tells us something about the thorough Palinification of the right. Palin was praised and embraced because of her perceved ordinariness, and her lack of expertise was regarded by her admirers as an advantage and a desirable trait, and now we are treated to the journalistic equivalent of Palin’s qualifications for the position she sought. In journalism as in politics, standards, qualifications and expertise are now to be thrown out; average-ness, ordinariness and ignorance are to be prized as proof of one’s authenticity. Like Palin’s pseudo-populism, which actually helps preserve and strengthen the hold the establishment has by making populism idiotic, this sort of “amateur” journalism does more to discredit amateurs and reinforce the pretensions of professional journalists than anything else. Far from marking the beginning of a serious rivalry with such outfits as TPM, this heralds the irrelevance of the conservative blogosphere as a vehicle for journalism.

Perhaps even more significant is the complete misunderstanding of the reaction to Joe the Correspondent, according to which Joe is to be admired because he annoys liberals. Unlike Palin, who really did inspire a visceral and vitriolic reaction among many liberals, the ascendance of Joe the Plumber has generated mostly confusion and bafflement mixed with delight that conservatives are so out of it that they have made such a person their icon. Much as many on the left fervently hope that the GOP is foolish enough to nominate Palin in the next election, they can only be overjoyed that the conservative blogosphere, rather than turning into an effective vehicle for political opposition, investigative journalism or policy advocacy, is turning into a caricature of the McCain campaign by continuing to elevate this man in such a prominent way.

Well said.

Joe the unquestioning, militaristic patriot

ThinkProgress:

Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka “Joe the Plumber,” is currently in Israel covering the war for the conservative site PJTV.com. When asked what he has learned from his new experiences as a journalist, Wurzelbacher said that he believes the media shouldn’t be allowed to do “reporting” on wars:

I’ll be honest with you. I don’t think journalists should be allowed anywhere near war. I mean, you guys report where our troops are at. You report what’s happening day to day. You make a big deal out of it. I think it’s asinine. You know, I liked back in World War I and World War II when you’d go to the theater and you’d see your troops on, you know, the screen and everyone would be real excited and happy for’em. Now everyone’s got an opinion and wants to downer–and down soldiers. You know, American soldiers or Israeli soldiers.

I think media should be abolished from, uh, you know, reporting. You know, war is hell. And if you’re gonna sit there and say, “Well look at this atrocity,” well you don’t know the whole story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it.

The hypocrisy here is astounding. And surely his desire to feel "real excited and happy for the troops" is related to the new praetorianism.

All the magazines and all the king's newspapers

Couric: And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this — to stay informed and to understand the world?

Palin: I’ve read most of them again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media —

Couric: But what ones specifically? I’m curious.

Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.

Couric: Can you name any of them?

Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news.

So Palin has "great appreciation for the press, for the media" but she won't mention any one by name?

I suppose she wouldn't want to freak voters out about her subscription to the End Times.

But seriously, this response is ridiculous, and reading a Hannite try to stay ahead with more spin is also funny:

suppose for instance she had tossed out a couple national newspapers or magazines. Let's say she'd said, 'Oh, I pick up the NY Times occasionally, or the Washington Post, or Time or Newsweek. Well, then Katie would have pounced with the 'follow-up' gotcha... 'Oh, you read the NY Times? Who's your favorite columnist?' or 'So you read Newsweek? What do you think of their cover story on the crisis in Georgia?'

She was very smart to say nothing. Don't even play the game...

Gotcha journalism at it's worst...

Yes, it's gotcha journalism to ask whether a presidential-level candidate stays well-informed via the press. We couldn't possibly have a legitimate reason to be skeptical of Palin's credentials on this point. Your man Hannity's "interview" was much fair and balanced-ier:



Obviously Katie Couric is incapable of working up to the exacting ethical standards of Sean Hannity and requires journalism lessons, as Palin explains:

Hewitt: Now Governor, the Gibson and the Couric interview struck many as sort of pop quizzes designed to embarrass you as opposed to interviews. Do you share that opinion?

Palin: Well, I have a degree in journalism also, so it surprises me that so much has changed since I received my education in journalistic ethics all those years ago. But I’m not going to pick a fight with those who buy ink by the barrelful. I’m going to take those shots and those pop quizzes and just say that’s okay, those are good testing grounds. And they can continue on in that mode. That’s good. That makes somebody work even harder. It makes somebody be even clearer and more articulate in their positions. So really I don’t fight it. I invite it.

Ah yes, Palin's education. So complete, it took five colleges. One college just wasn't enough to satiate Sarah's vast appetite for knowledge & understanding.

Oh but she doesn't fight the press, she invites it? This parallel universe in which she's held regular press conferences must be fascinating. Is that also the one that's only 6,000 years old?