What About Alt-Weeklies, Downie?
The just-released report of Leonard Downie Jr. and Michael Schudson, titled "The Reconstruction of American Journalism," takes a long, hard look at an embattled industry. As the authors point out in the report, "Fewer journalists are reporting less news in fewer pages, and the hegemony that near-monopoly metropolitan newspapers enjoyed during the last third of the twentieth century, even as their primary audience eroded, is ending."
The report takes a particular interest in local accountability and enterprise reporting, which is the commodity most at stake as newspapers pare down their editorial staffs. The paring-down is serious: Though the number of newspaper editorial employees jumped from 40,000 to 60,000 from 1971 to 1992, it has returned to 40,000.
Former Washington Post Executive Editor Downie and Schudson, a Columbia University prof, run through their candidates for supplementing newspapers' legendary local coverage:
- Radio and TV news: Nah, there's just not enough reportorial muscle in these operations to hold cops and city halls accountable, the authors conclude, citing some notable exceptions.
- Sites like Voice of San Diego and MinnPost, not to mention ProPublica and others. These are good starts, say the authors. BUT: "Collectively, the newcomers are filling some of the gaps left by the downsizing of newspapers’ reporting staffs, especially in local accountability and neighborhood reporting. However, the staffs of most of the start-ups are still small, as are their audiences and budgets, and they are scattered unevenly across the country."
- Bloggers: They're doing some serious work out there. BUT: "The fast-growing number of digital start-ups, ambitious blogs, experiments in pro-am journalism, and other hybrid news organizations are not replacing newspapers or broadcast news."
- Alt-Weeklies: Alt-weeklies? Well, jeez, let me do a search on the Downie-Schudson document and see if I can't find them, or at least some mention of them. Search results negative!
I suppose that's forgivable. After all, alt-weeklies, which are scattered evenly across the country, only channel all of their editorial resources toward local reporting; only conduct long-form investigations of key local agencies and authorities all the time; only monitor city halls like no one's business; only do all kinds of arts reporting that no other outlets care to do; and have been at it only for about half a century now.
Why mention those news organizations?
Hey, wait: I found an alt-weekly reference. In discussing the impact of Baltimore blogger Fern Shen, Downie and Schudson write: "She is hoping to take advantage of being named “best local blog” by the Baltimore City Paper to raise revenue from prospective advertisers and eventually create a paying business for herself and her contributors."
Now that's the kind of alt-weekly impact I'm talking about!
Comments
Leave a Reply
You can follow any responses to this entry through its comments RSS feed.
1:23 pm
Erik,
Alt-Weeklies absolutely provide that content. It's interesting Downie didn't mention this source of journalism at all. It's true that free publications are suffering as advertising revenue falls. All that reporting comes at a cost, to be sure.
So unless people somehow magically decide they want to pay to read the City Paper, the free alt-weekly model seems to be destined for the same grave as everything else.
Though I certainly hope the field of journalism doesn't end up being run by yahoos with a 'blog' such as myself. As much as blogs cover important topics, most writers don't have the resources, time, or talent to get the job done right. (See also: Prince of Petworth. Sorry. Not to be mean, but if that's where journalism is headed then count me out.)
1:23 pm
Leonard Downey is an idiot. First he helped kill the Wash Post; now he pontificates as a media expert.
Typical Bush-era American-style idiocy - you fail, but you get promoted, & continue to be considered an expert. See also, Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, Ben Bernacke, et al.
2:43 pm
I only get my local news from alt-weeklies, excepting the occassional post on an -ist blog. But many people seem to neglect taking them too seriously, perhaps because they generally spurn conventional styles of reportage found in mainstream dailies. Whenever I refer to a story in the City Paper or the Village Voice (depending where I am at the time), it is usually met with suspicion. I try to explain the necessity of alternative papers in holding a panoramic view of news, but anything not written in the dry, dispassionate NY Times format seems to makes people uncomfortable.
12:35 am
Does someone need a hug again?
3:56 pm
Dave Stroup,
The organizations (dailies, magazines) that charge a cover price for their publications are hurting badly...so that means the organizations that DON'T charge for their publications are doomed?
Not sure I follow your logic there.
While the dailies all wait for the other guy to be the first to charge for on-line news, those of us who never charged to begin with really aren't panicking.
While the last couple of years were rough, the alt-weeklies are in a much better position than the big dailies. We don't have the massive overhead, we focus on the things that count (as Erik pointed out), and we have actual sales forces that the digital startups have a hard time matching.
5:47 pm
Dear Tony Ortega -- I wish your paper was better. I'm not comparing it to any "digital startups" but to the old Village Voice. It's amazing to recall how much content was offered by the Voice before it was purchased by New Times. Now if you don't like the cover story, you're stuck with Musto and a few reviews. Yes, there are still a lot of ads.
Alan Malloy
Lower East Side, Manhattan
5:50 am
I've never lost my habit of picking up the Village Voice. There's some muscle on the old bones (Robbins; good music coverage; a book section [!]). The economy whacked it hard and much has died. The paper can't muster a letters section anymore, more than a shame. It's a telling loss of connectivity. The long cover stories, usually the only item listed in "Features" on the table of contents, rarely match the quality of New Yorker, New York, or NY Times Mags. The cover story generally begins with a snap and a hook, then turns into a notebook-dump that economically snakes through the advertising. I still want to see the old girl every week.