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Category: Readers' Opinions

■ 19 November 2008 | 5:00 AM

Echoing the Internet

Re 'Are there any newspapers left?' op-ed, Nov. 6:

Newspapers are making news, but not in a good way. Columnist Leonard Pitts worries that within the next two years we'll witness 'the first major U.S. city without a daily paper.' He makes the claim that newspapers are struggling because they can't translate 'readership into revenue' in the Internet world.

That line of thinking is too narrow. It was documented more than 20 years ago well before the Internet that newspapers were already facing problems with circulation. These critics pointed out that newspapers had stopped writing about what citizens care about housing, social causes, education, community development, governance. Circulation suffered, only to be later aggravated by the Internet.

So you would think that newspapers would play to their unique capacity to do long-form, intense reporting and analysis about local issues, something the Internet struggles to provide. Instead, symptomatic of this preoccupation with technology, newspapers increasingly try to ape the Internet. Shorter stories. Lots of photos and images. Bullet-point 'news bites.' Even inserting bloggers into editorials and stories!

Which begs the question: If the daily paper looks more like what's on the Internet, who needs it?

Newspapers better come to terms with that question inside of the next two years. Otherwise, I fear a death spiral and a decline of reporting that we need in our communities.

Burton St. John III

Norfolk

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The Virginian-Pilot Lite

Submitted by charlesm on Sun, 11/23/2008 at 3:33 pm.

Now that the Pilot is going to a Business Section only on Sunday and further shrinking the paper still more, it's time to do some serious thought about your subscription. Various free publications bring mostly advertising with a smattering of other material, what the paper is becoming.

marym63204

Submitted by michaelm78376 on Sun, 11/23/2008 at 8:55 am.

I don't get what you are trying to say. I read it four times and your tie in with just electing democrats doesn't make any sense. By the way, I have a bachelors (not bragging--just didn't want you thinking it was above my head).

Mary - dont kid yourself

Submitted by TR on Thu, 11/20/2008 at 3:54 pm.

You gotta give this false equivalency thing a break when it comes to Faux. There is absolutely nothing comparable. Fox is horribly slanted, CNN & others tend to be just bad. You have the war/Bush-cheerleading Fox on one end of the spectrum & you had a cowering, go-along media on the other. When Iraq melted down into a horrific 3 year civil war, Fox paid scant coverage to the war & focused on Anna Nicole Smith instead. There's the PIPA study that showed Fox viewers to be terribly misinformed. Could Fox have gone to the "madrassa" school that they 'reported' on instead of having CNN do their work & shoot it down? Or is the smear itself the purpose? Former Fox anchor Jon DuPre said it best "We weren’t necessarily ... a newsgathering organization so much as we were a proponent of a point of view … we were there to reinforce a constituency." Theres the Project on Excellence in Journalism report in 2006, the PIPA study, a Pew Research study, and FoxNews own president writing memos instructing their anchors/reports to positively spin pro-life viewpoints, the Iraq war, tax cuts, and Abu Ghraib. That GWB's "political courage & tactical cunning are worth noting in our daily reporting".

More detail. More local news.

Submitted by jeffconn on Thu, 11/20/2008 at 3:54 pm.

i agree with the original letter writer than more in-depth reporting is what is needed. also, focus on Hampton Roads more. i'm so disappointed when i read the sports section and don't see any reports on Christopher Newport or Virginia Wesleyan sports. Usually it's nothing but a little boxscore. And the coverage of high school sports is pitiful. Local news and sports is what impacts your readership. And it's content that Yahoo News, CNN, or ESPN.com just can't give you.

TR

Submitted by marym63204 on Thu, 11/20/2008 at 10:42 am.

Some people think Fox News is slanted; some think CNN is slanted. Probably depends on your politics and background, don't you think?

MaryM

Submitted by TR on Wed, 11/19/2008 at 12:30 pm.

I think you are taking WFBuckley too literally. Its not necessarily an avoidance of in-depth analysis of the news. Its that fox viewers appear to be misinformed by foxnews. Having said that, being able to misinform viewers and the viewers letting themselves be misinformed, perhaps those same viewers are by definition avoiding an in-depth analysis.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/714.html

W.F. Buckley

Submitted by marym63204 on Wed, 11/19/2008 at 11:35 am.

The demographics don't support your conclusions that people who can't comprehend deep analysis run to watch Fox!
You said yourself 2/3's of our people are not college grads (you said it less flatteringly--that they only have a high school diploma--lots of folks try college, then drop out!). If only 1/3 of us have higher education, that 1/3 could not include *all* of the non-Fox watching Democrats. Why? Because we just elected a Democratic president, House, and Senate. How would that work if the D's were only 1/3 of our population???

Burton, you have an elitist’s view of newspapers

Submitted by W. F. Buckley on Wed, 11/19/2008 at 9:39 am.

Newspapers are a product. Their content reflects what consumers want.

Only highly educated consumers want "long-form, intense reporting and analysis about local issues." The bulk of consumers prefer "shorter stories. Lots of photos and images. Bullet-point 'news bites.'"

After all, two thirds of the population has a high school degree or less. They favor slogans over complicated analysis. As a general audience product, the newspaper has always been written for sixth-graders.

(Have you ever read the comments here? You will see what I mean.)

The real problem with newspapers is they have the wrong product. "Breaking news" is no longer the key ingredient of a print newspaper. Breaking news now occurs online. And, based on the popularity of online news sites, the readers love it there.

Still, newspapers come out every morning as if we haven't already seen and read their "news" hours earlier.

What print newspapers have to do is redefine themselves. Perhaps they should appeal to a more educated audience and focus on the higher level reporting you suggest. But the bulk of readers, when told the issue is far more complicated than they think, will run to the comfort of Fox.