by Mark Silva
Today, on the day that the Rocky Mountain News announces that it will be printing its final edition on Friday, it's worth considering what freedom of the press - and the proliferation of a strong press - has done for democracy in America.
Today, we also have freedom of the Web.
And increasingly, Americans, free to roam like the buffalo, are turning to the Internet for their news.
Before anyone celebrates the decline of newspaper readership and the increase in Internet viewership, it's worth considering the financial resources that strong newspapers and magazines bring to bear in the investigation of corruption in government, wrongdoing in private life and abuse of power in general.
The business model of the Web-site and the resources it takes to publish one aren't likely to sustain the sort of prize-winning journalism that Americans have come to cherish as a national tradition and indeed expectation. There are several strong newspapers behind this Web-site, for instance - struggling with the economic troubles that have besieged the national in general, for sure, yet still robust enough to deliver the sort of journalism that brought to light the corruption of the former governor of Illinois.
The Pew Research Center has found that, among those surveyed last year, just 39 percent of Americans said they had read a newspaper the day before, either in print or online. That was down from 43 percent in 39 percent in 2006.
The proportion reporting that they had read solely a print version of a newspaper fell by roughly a quarter, from 34 to 25 percent. And the 14 percent of Americans who said they had read a newspaper online was up 9 percent.
"The balance between online and print readership changed substantially between 2006 and 2008,'' Pew reports. "In 2008, online readers comprised more than a third of all newspaper readers. Two years earlier, fewer than a quarter of newspaper readers viewed them on the Web. This is being driven by a substantial shift in how younger generations read newspapers.
"In 2008, nearly equal percentages in Generation Y (born 1977 or later) read a newspaper online and in print; 16% said they read only a print newspaper, or both the Web and print versions, while 14% said they read a newspaper only on the internet, or both online and in print. In 2006, more than twice as many in Gen Y said they read a printed newspaper than the online version (22% vs. 9%).
"There is a similar pattern in newspaper readership for Generation X (born between 1965 and 1976). In 2008, 21% read only a print newspaper, or both an online and a print newspaper; 18% read a newspaper only on the Web, or both online and in print. In 2006, 30% of Gen X read a newspaper in print, while just 13% read a web version.
"Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) and the Silent/Greatest Generations (born before 1946) continue to read newspapers at higher rates than do those in younger age cohorts.
"However, the proportion of Baby Boomers who said they read a newspaper yesterday slipped between 2006 and 2008, from 47% to 42%. The decline among Baby Boomers has come entirely in print readership (from 42% to 34%).''
Comments
Republican lunatics ACTIVATE...more to show their hate towards.
Posted by: republican mess | February 26, 2009 3:32 PM
The corporate media has been in the back pocket of the Republican party for years now. And just like the Republicans, they're losing credibility with Americans everywhere.
"A visual analysis of television presidential campaign coverage from 1992 to 2004 suggests that the three television broadcast networks -- ABC, CBS and NBC -- favored Republicans in each election, according to two Indiana University professors in a new book."
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/9993.html
Of course, as we witnessed with W., I'm sure the knuckle-draggers from the rightwing lunatic fringe will dismiss this as being the work of some pointy headed elitist professors that they don't like. As we know all to well, wingnuts aren't really into any of that book learnin' stuff.
Posted by: Hamburglar | February 26, 2009 4:12 PM
News paper aren't hard boiled like in the old days.
too liberal.
Years ago The Chicago Tribune was one of the best. Now a chapter eleven LIBERAL MESS.
No wonder they went to tabloid to make it look thicker
Posted by: Inky | February 26, 2009 5:00 PM
Mark, is the Swamp an online newspaper? It is and it isn't in my eyes, but I am not sure what the term "newspaper" means when talking about online media.
If the Swamp is not an online newspaper, then I am one of the 61%. That said though, a newspaper is not the only source of news. I listen to NPR most of the day, and watch the Newshour at night, and the Sun. programming, so some would say that I am a news junkie, but not much of a newspaper person.
Posted by: Xcellentform | February 26, 2009 5:43 PM
There is no such beast as 'liberal media bias.' This is just another scare-meme used by Druggy Rush and Faux News etc to browbeat the media into covering stories the way they want, and to scare the public into following their lead.
Posted by: Doug Vader, son of Darth | February 26, 2009 6:04 PM
Think I'll celebrate when every liberal newspaper goes down! Have to be careful though to drink in moderation.
Posted by: Harold Reimann | February 26, 2009 6:26 PM
Mark, I'm a devoted newspaper reader, but your argument that only newspapers have the resources to unearth government correction is just not right. What exactly did the Tribune unearth before the courts got involved? Same with Blagovitch. Web-based sites like Josh Marshal's Talking Points Memo in the last four or five years have been much more active in unearthing corruption than any newspapers.
Posted by: Henry | February 26, 2009 6:38 PM
There's a lot more than government corruption in the littany of investigations which this and other newspapers have undertaken -- how about the safety of children's toys, which a Tribune investigation exposed, resulting in new government regulations? Start at the Web-site -- yes, the Web-site -- of the Pulitzer Prizes, for a taste of the many award-winning investigations which newspapers have sponsored. They have freed innocent men from Death Row and sent guilty politicians to prison. We take for granted what great newspapers have done, and we will rue the day that few are able to carry on that tradition.
Posted by: Mark Silva | February 26, 2009 6:47 PM
Mark Silva rhapsodizes about newspaper investigations and the "sort of prize-winning journalism that Americans have come to cherish as a national tradition and indeed expectation."
Does that revered "investigative tradition" include Mr. Silva's multi-part series on Obama's choice of poodle?
Posted by: William Allen White | February 26, 2009 7:45 PM
Truth is, as an old newspaperman toiling online and in print, I am honored to have the devotion of a reader who maintains that he cannot stand what I write, or me for that matter, yet comes back here faithfully, day in and day out, to tell me all about it. It's a great country, and a great trade. Long live journalism.
Posted by: Mark Silva | February 26, 2009 7:55 PM
Mark, you're doing a great job. Don't listen to the wingnutters on here. They're angry at everyone because they're being rejected by everyone.
Posted by: Hulk Smash! | February 26, 2009 9:16 PM
The connection between the media news and our daily experience is becoming increasingly tenuous. The fact that the new president can be blamed for the economy within minutes of taking office while the previous office holder is seldom identified in the press as having anything to do with the current debacle creates a reality rift that can only be crossed with honest journalism. Voters seem to know that the facts are otherwise, but, when the news reporters and pundits try to be politic in the middle (wherever they perceive the middle to be anyway), potential readers sense the insincerity and go elsewhere. Buying a newspaper you have doubts about is a bit like being given the opportunity to buy the Brooklyn Bridge. After you purchase, you have the strange sense is was not worth the money. I understand the Brooklyn Bridge is still for sale, by the way.
Posted by: Julian Lev | February 26, 2009 11:12 PM
Mark, did any of the main stream newspapers upon whom we rely to expose corruption, break the story that Bobby Jindahl flat out lied in his response to Obama's State of the Union speech? Where would we be without the internet these days? As for the series about unsafe toys, that is old stuff. When I was working as a reporter in Michigan 30 years ago, Genesee County Prosecutor Robert Leonard was getting national press with his annual press conference exposing unsafe toys. Tell me the name of a guilty politician sent to prison because the press exposed him. In all the cases I know, including Ryan, all the press did was report on the prosecutors and the courts.
Posted by: Henry | February 27, 2009 6:44 PM
From an April 21, 1931 letter to Lyman "Beech" Kellogg, a newspaper reporter friend in Palo Alto, CA.
"Of course as long as man lives someone will have to fill the herald's place. Someone will have to do the bellringer's work. Someone will have to tell the story of the day's news and the year's happenings. A reporter is perennial under many names and will persist with humanity. But whether the reporter's story will be printed in types upon a press, I don't know. I seriously doubt it. I think most of the machinery now employed in printing the day's, the week's, or the month's doings will be junked by the end of this century and will be as archaic as the bellringer's bell, or the herald's trumpet. New methods of communication I think will supersede the old."
--William Allen White
Posted by: Ray D. Ation | February 28, 2009 11:50 AM