Newspapers are laying off and cutting the information contained within. Just look at the Allentown Morning Call. Less news and more ads. Plus more of the "news" stories are pieces sent in by the public. The Morning Call now devotes one full page and many days, part of a second page to letters sent in. The Morning Call is also using articles written by readers as news stories. Their hope is that by making this connection with the readers, their circulation will grow. I hate to tell Thomas Kennedy over at the Morning Call, but that will not help. You have done a terrible job of developing the largest paper in the Lehigh Valley. Readership is down and so is ad revenue. The fat lady is singing unless....
This from Variety magazine.
Today, though, amid daily waves of depressing economic news, conflicted voices sound preferable to neutered or, worse, deceased ones.
It's not a given that further relaxing restrictions on media consolidation would significantly benefit ailing broadcasters and newspapers at this late stage. Economies of scale certainly haven't kept Time Warner from shedding staff at its magazines or Tribune out of bankruptcy.
Even so, the incoming Obama administration faces difficult choices involving big media nearly as nettlesome, in their own way, as the mess it's grappling with regarding the Big Three automakers.
Brian Lowry's idea is to regulate media ownership. Lowry wants the government to decide who can own what with respect to the business of selling news.
Without some kind of action, more broadcasters, newspapers and magazines are going to die off. Local news coverage -- the essence of public service, however quaint and dated that might sound -- has already been seriously compromised, as TV and print cut back on newsgathering resources. Other creative methods to pare costs have assumed almost Orwellian dimensions, from outsourcing editing functions to Mumbai (there's nothing quite like having copy editors 8,000 miles away from the city council meeting) to "citizen journalism," often little more than code for stations that lack the manpower to cover their communities tapping amateur video to fill the void.
No action is needed Mr Lowry. If the media can not do what is necessary to survive in the internet age, then it should wither and die. This is like the government intervening to help wagon makers when the automobile first arrived.
Since Obama came on the scene, all the little weak socialist/liberals want the government to help them.
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