Dinosaur Media's Bad 2008

Annus Horribilus for the media - worst bias ever, and a slide to low trust and low credibility: "more than 50% of Americans polled now do not trust the press."

As an example of how badly the media did, H/T to Protein Wisdom, we get Patterico's LA Times "dog trainer" Year in Review 2008, an excellent and detailed review of the LA Times' 2008 shenanigans, mis-reporting, media bias and more:

This year, L.A. Times editors slammed Sarah Palin, John McCain, and McCain’s ally Joe the Plumber — while they protected Barack Obama and his allies, including unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers and radical Palestinian Rashid Khalidi. The paper described a 19-point margin in opposition to gay marriage as a “narrow margin,” and displayed the usual politically correct attitudes on race, abortion, and crime. We watched the paper overreach on the story about Judge Alex Kozinski’s porn collection that wasn’t. And the paper retracted a story by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chuck Philips, in one of the most embarrassing incidents in the paper’s history. This year saw a campaign of relentless distortions on DNA evidence; the bankruptcy of Tribune Company; and a collection of errors like none we’ve ever seen before.

The litany of horribles is well worth reading. Meanwhile: Media journalists donate to Dems 100-to-1 over Republicans. All this bias sure isn't helping the newspaper business. The Austin Statesman publisher, Cox, is shutting down its DC bureau.

Paul Mulshine misses the newspaper, but Instapundit stands up for the bloggers. As does Jules Critenden, more forcefully, pointing out where bloggers have done the reporting that the MSM is unwilling to do, while admitting the need for professional standards.

Mulshine asks:

Over the past few weeks, I've watched a parade of top-notch reporters leave the Star-Ledger for the last time. The old model for compensating journalists is as obsolete as the telegraph. If anyone out there in the blogosphere can tell me what the new model is, I will pronounce him the first genius I've ever encountered on the Internet.

Jarvis says give it up, you're doomed. Much as I'd love the liberal MSM to go down like the Titanic, here's my attempt at genius:

We live in an era of a surplus of general information, and a surplus of opinion. Blogs are everywhere (like right here). You want to know something? It's trivial to find out, via google. Anything that is easy is not value-added. The cost of a bit of information is now effectively zero, so the younger generation is trained to not pay for news that to them comes free much faster and more pargetted via the internet. Sam Zell points out that 86% of the cost of a newspaper is print, paper, distribution. That's a 7 to 1 cost disadvantage to internet journalism, which itself faces the problem for "free versus fee". Editorials are simply a waste of ink on so many levels. Why pay good money for editorials when the Statesman tells me things I know are false? Our opinions here are free for the the taking (and a lot more on target).

The opposite of the general information and opinion is hard-reporting of the specific and unique. What is distinct and different is valuable, inside information - real journalism that is unique will still be of use to people. Papers that get and stay local, and use that to maintain readership, will survive. There is no reason for any newspaper to have any employees outside of the hometown of their publication, since they can simply get the rest via the wires. And reprinting news 18 hours out-of-date from when its on the internet in dead tree form may not be a strong business model. Giving people information they cannot get elsewhere is. The newspapers of tomorrow will shed the political bias, shed the blandness, and become focussed, locally relevent, and interesting enough to keep readers. Instead of same thing every day, think of 5 to 7 days of weekly papers: one day on business, one on life and arts (e.g. Austin's XLEnt model), one on local politics, one on neighborhood concerns. Shifting some reporting and coverage from a daily to weekly focus could slim down the whole operation of a paper and make it more efficient, without losing the depth needed to be valuable. At the same time, create a cross-feeding of different media formats - internet, print, radio, and TV. Content is king, so leverage it as best you can through all media.

Or just cut more staffers, continue the status quo and hope for the internet to get un-invented.

Some advice for student journalists, alas it doesn't include "quit J-school and get an MBA." But the advice includes this gem:

The world doesn’t need more music reviewers or opinion spouters. The world needs more people willing to ask tough questions. The first step to reversing journalism’s tarnished image is to have the guts to dig for information the public can’t easily find themselves, and be an advocate of unbiased, straightforward truth.

Good advice for journalists, and good advice for bloggers too. My resolution here is going to be asking more tough questions, and sharing more of the information the liberal MSM is not willing to share.