|
By Gerry Storch
 So the Chicago Tribune Co. files for bankruptcy. That doesn't mean the Tribune won't continue to publish but it sure makes it possible it will stop at some point soon.
Since the other major paper in Chicago, the Sun-Times, also is an economic basket case, could that mean that the nation's third largest metro area ... a gigantic area across three states with more than eight million people ... will be without a primary printed source of daily information?
What about Minneapolis, where the Star-Tribune has missed an interest payment? What about San Diego, where the Union-Tribune is up for sale? What about Denver, where the Rocky Mountain News is up for sale? What about Los Angeles, where the ailing Times is part of the ailing Tribune chain? What about Detroit, where the News and Free Press will be halting home delivery on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays? What about Miami, where the Herald is up for sale?
We could go on and on but the Miami situation is particularly sad for me as I worked as a feature writer at the Herald way back when ... OK, from 1976 into 1978 ... and it was a cracklingly good product. It had top reporters, top editors and a commitment to excellence ... simple as that. Reading it the current version online, I think the Herald staff survived a first round of cutbacks fairly well but a second round has decimated the quality. You can't cover a major metro area when you don't have enough staffers.
The Detroit situation is even worse for me as I interned at the Free Press and had two stints at the News . first as a reporter, then an editor. When you stop home delivery, you interrupt the newspaper reading habit that's been the lifeblood of the industry . and it's all downhill from there.
Here's what I think will happen with the future of news coverage in major metros once their papers fold. Let's view it through the angle of the sensational development that the wiretapped Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested on federal corruption charges of trying to wangle a big payoff for filling President-elect Obama's Senate seat ... and bear in mind this story probably will go on for a while since Obama was spawned by the very same Chicago Democratic Party machine and we'll have to see if his buddies become implicated, or just how high this will go.
Without the Tribune or Sun-Times existing, how would Chicago be informed of this news? We doubt if local TV could fill the void ... we can see it now ... "Good evening, here's today's top news. The governor was arrested by the FBI. But now, let's switch to our reporter Sally Starlet for this live report on hair and makeup tips from the Chicago Beauty Pageant."
There'll be a better option. I think the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and USA Today will survive as national papers. They will have a Chicago bureau, probably jointly to make it economical. I foresee these four papers banding together to maintain or form bureaus in the largest metro areas across the U.S. Thus readers in Chicago could get the Blago news from their home-delivered edition of the NYT, Journal, Post or USAT. It would be the same basic story in all four but competition would still exist as each paper would undoubtedly rush in reporters to look for additional exclusives.
These papers will do the same with international news ... combining to staff bureaus in the major cities around the world. I doubt if the Associated Press will survive since the mass of papers supporting it won't.
As for the smaller metro areas ... I think of the one I live in ... Naples, FL. The paper here, the Naples Daily News, seems doomed to failure. It's part of the Scripps chain ... and Scripps is the troubled owner that can't afford to keep the Rocky Mountain News going. Worse yet, the Scripps company split off its profitable cable TV operations and thus they no longer subsidize the newspapers. The paper also has made a terrible blunder by building a new printing plant (still in construction) just as its usage of newsprint declines ... the equivalent of building the world's best typewriter factory 20 years ago.
The NDN has just suffered another in its inevitable round of layoffs. I ran into a photographer at an event earlier this year and she shook her head sadly and told me, "Last year we had nine photographers. Now we have four."
I think what will replace the newspaper in Naples, and newspapers elsewhere, will be a pricy on-line newsletter. It will have a cheap, barebones staff to cover the basic business of the town ... the city council, the school board, the police beat ... and a couple veteran pros to provide an insider's knowledge of what's going on and make it worthwhile for readers to cough up $100 a month for a subscription ... or whatever it costs to make a profit.
So people who want straight news will still be able to get it. The media will continue but in a much different form, and they won't be the mass media any more.
Trackback(0)
 |
TrackBack URI for this entry
That is Hilarious! Sad but true. Even now you see the rumblings of mediacrity!! (new word for the day)Cnn will run a story into China. Remember the "bubble boy" or "balloon boy", whtever the story was called, I had had enough the first 80 minutes, let alone the 450 odd hours they spent on that "important" story. I want to go on but I am responding from work, but know that iI am fed up with the lack of journalistic responsibility in our entire culture. That's all I have time for. God help us all