Tuesday, August 31, 2010

In just a few minutes . . .

. . . my friends at the D-News will be in a staff meeting in which the findings of a new study will be shared with them. Basically that's code for "most of you are going to be fired." Or at least that's what people are saying at the paper. We'll see.

Meanwhile, I have spent the last few weeks feeling sick at heart for these friends of mine who are worthy, died-in-the-wool newspaper people and who have worked hard over the years to honor that which is best in the profession of journalism. Nobody knows where the world of print news is going, and I'm not unsympathetic to management trying to figure out how to make things work in this new media world. But still. I can be sad, can't I?

Me, I'm personally worried that as news lives more and more in cyberspace, such traditional practices (requirements!) of checking, double-checking and triple-checking vetted sources will just go out the window due to a lack of time and money both. From here on out, I fear it will be all spin. All opinion and agenda-driven. I know there are people out there who will say BUT THAT'S WHAT THE LAMESTREAM MEDIA does already. Well, here's my response: people who make this claim only prove that they are, in fact, ignorant and naive and terribly fond of playing the victim. They truly are.

Here's hoping for something good to come out of this all. Not that I'm feeling very hopeful.

3 comments:

Tiffany said...

Fingers crossed for good news. I hope, hope, hope, that newspapers find a way to navigate these new waters. I agree with you that we need them and their fact-checking, accountable traditions.

Lisa B. said...

I, too, hope that there's a good outcome for this--and agree with you that print newspapers are such an important resource. In these dark times, we need all the old practices for news, plus some new ones. Not one or the other. Fingers crossed, with Tiffany.

Donna Tagliaferri said...

I am so sorry. I can speak on this one with great authority. And guess what? It stinks...
But reality is none of our struggles are about the thing we think it is....it is about us and how we handle it, how we grow from it, what lessons we can learn, in short, miracles only occur when there is great strife. I hate it, but it is an amazing time to see what you are made of. I found I had a gooey center...