Failures in Print

Although at this hour I can't seem to find the exact reference, I believe it is W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge that begins "Never have I begun a story with more trepidation." Such is my attitude toward, not this story, but this blog entry for a myriad of reasons.

It has been an odd day for me. It is futher even more odd for me to be writing this, due to a run-in with a reporter from one of the newspapers I am about to discuss. Needless to say this run-in was with a hometown girl, one that I've written of before. Let's just say that my prior concerns that she is unable to support an opinion/view in her writing was reiterated to me today in the most offensive of emails I received in response to an email I wrote her expressing concern about a piece she had recently authored. Her email to me and the original piece was offensive - we'll leave it at that.

At first, I wanted to take great strides to separate my experience today with this reporter from this blog. But really it has everything to do with it.

Recently both The Toronto Star and the Boston Globe have found themselves in financial difficulties. The Boston Globe to such an extent that it may have to shut its doors if $20million in concessions from the unions cannot be found according to recent reports. The Toronto Star is likewise in dire straits it seems. In early March it reported a $211 million loss and laid off 46 employees.

This is not unlike the story of newspapers around North America. Media outlets in Canada in both print and broadcast have found themselves in hard times. Rumor has it that CanWest/Southam may fold at any moment (due in part to stock prices that have fallen from $30 per share to meager pennies). In the US papers such as the Rocky Mountain News are closing after operating for 130 years. This is the sad account by the Mountain News of its own execution.

But here's where my day and the future of newspapers collide.

I'll be sad to see the end of the presses, if this does in fact happen. I'm sad too to see the shrinking of the industry if nothing else.

But, lately, there has been an odd convergence of "The Press" and the online media world. Papers somehow started to think less of themselves in my opinion - that by becoming online entities, they would and should participate in the online media landscape. This meant embracing Twitter, blogging and social interactions among their readership. I can understand how some Digital Media Manager at a newspaper thought this was the silver bullet, and got that big promotion.

But something else changed. Standards.

Among a growing number of papers I feel that the de rigeur of reporting is gone. There used to be the sense that the press was an authoritative source. Now it's all about opinions and columns. I will argue that even opinions must be corroborated to be legitimate, but (as I learned today) that is not necessarily the opinions of all the press. Apparently opinions can just be opinions - that's all.

I know I've been getting a sinking sensation of "OK, so you want them to pass the economic stimulus bill because you're a Liberal, but what other reasons support this opinion?" lately every time I read Krugman (today's blog entry is even called "One More Time").

Call me silly or naive, but I hold the paid/professional press to a different standard than your average screaming man on the street. Are professional reporters allowed to have opinions? Yes. But they must be founded in something to be, well, legitimate. That is a professional opinion. Can they have a personal opinion? Yes - but that should remain in their kitchen, living room or the backseat of their car.

In other words, I don't read newspapers to hear about a person's unprofessional opinion about issues. I can get that at my home. I look to press opinions for their expertise to be expressed in their Op-Eds, not their stupidity.

Now with bloggers I know I'm getting the living room opinion (literally in most cases as they tend to work out of their homes. I know I do). I don't expect anything greater from most than a whinny rant. Heck that's what a blog is - an online log/journal of one's life, opinions and ideas.

So when newspapers dipped their toes into the world of blogs and, even worse, poorly thought out personal opinion pieces presented as news - well, they kinda had it coming, didn't they?

Call me morose, but I think newspapers in general are causing their own death. In an attempt to be cool and hip for the kids, they've cannibalized their greatest assets.

Legitimacy. Honesty. Authority.

So we will have a more 'democratic' media, one in which even I through this blog can participate. But it will be less professional. More personal. However, as I've argued above, even without the influences of the blogs we seem to be headed in that direction anyway. Newpapers have forgotten their incrimental value over the blog - the value to the reader in the news itself that only they can deliver.

Long live the blog. Die press, die.