The decline of newspaper journalism is a well-known phenomenon and one we've addressed before on this blog. It looks like we're moving quickly toward the end of the newspaper as an institution. And this, in a way, is sad.
I came across some depressing statistics today in The Public Relations Strategist, a quarterly magazine put out by the Public Relations Society of America.
It cited Editor & Publisher in saying that more than 2,000 journalism jobs were cut in 2005, including the following newspaper positions:
- Newsday, 49
- Hartford Courant, 14
- Baltimore Sun, 75
- Los Angeles Times, 85
- Morning Call (Allentown, PA), 12
- Daily Press (Newport News, VA), 8
- Chicago Tribune, 100
- Philadelphia Inquirer, 75
- Philadelphia Daily News, 25
- San Jose Mercury News, 52
- San Francisco Chronicle, 120
- Houston Chronicle, 125
- The (Durham, NC) Herald-Sun/Paxton, 81
- Seattle Times, 99
- Boston Herald, 35
- Green Bay News-Chronicle, 14
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 130
- Birmingham (AL) Post-Herald, 43
The most troubling aspect of this is the impact it has on the ability of not only the newsroom as a whole to cover events -- but the capacity of the individual reporters who remain. Stretched thin, they cannot do as good a job on any story. And editors are far less likely to approve the kind of in-depth enterprise pieces that really make a difference.
Instead, journalists will report their beats via the telephone, as this is the most efficient way to cover a lot of ground. The news will become stiff and boring, and newspapers will have to fill their page with wire stories, making every surviving paper sound like every other surviving paper.
Indeed, this already has been taking place for some time.
Now, I applaud the advent of new media as much as anyone else blogging, podcasting and taking full advantage of the technology we have available today. But, unfortunately, the one thing technology cannot replace is shoeleather reporting.
Unless someone gathers the news, we'll soon run out of things to write about, comment upon and use as a basis for our newest and greatest ideas.
