The Departed; Newspapers Face the Reaper, and the Haganational Goes Mobile

I'm a traveling man. This post is being spit at my burgeoning band of public and private readership (you know who you are Ms. Director of Household Sales and Such) from federal route 287 between Ft. Collins, CO and Laramie, WYO via my favorite and most useful device in the world, my work-owned BlackBerry.

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Because this blog is being written all thumbs on a mobile device, I will be expecting more than a few errors in spelling and syntax and shit, as well as an adjustment period away from the local sin tax to which I've become accustomed.

OK, all disclaimers are now out of the way, let's get to it; NEWSPAPERS ARE DYING. I am not the first to present this postulation, but hot-damn it's been something I've thought about lately. Now I may not have the command of the language and the stylistic discipline of a classically trained journalist, but I've always had an affinity for the art and science of the trade.

Two dudes I went to college with, and who excelled at Ohio U's prestigious journalism school are now on the beat of big-league ball teams, aka the sweetest job ever. Here's the catch; one of these motherfuckers is a freelancer who gets picked up by the Huffington Post and other online outlets, the other one writes for MLB.com, pro baseball's official website. Neither one has their shit literally put down on the printed page, unless you like to hit the ricoh machine and take a duke with your morning sports news.

And that's where the rub is. Never before has the "work" of journalists been more accessible, information more easily tossed about and disseminated. This fact has its obvious and inherent pros and cons; the delivery speed of our information on national and international affairs, business, sports, and everything else is instant. On the downside, getting the whole story and the whole story right, as well as a once or twice-over editing process, much of the essence of. reporting.as it has evolved, is gone.

This is a troublesome concept, I think. The bastardization (only bastards can use that particularly offensive word, you don't see me calling TARP the kyking down of the US economy, civil unions as the bulldyking of social institutions, or Michelle Obama's interior decorating solutions the niggerdizing of the oval office drapes... We need a lobby) of reporting has been underway for years, but the acceleration of the internet's ability to pilfer revenue (craigslist v classifieds, nytimes.com v paying for the New York Times) from the old papers will ultimately prove to be the vintage Mike Tyson good night kiss.

The problem is that newspapers are operating on an outdated business model, and were particularly slow (smug?) when shit got different. (The times they were a 'changin, but The Times wasn't changing shit). Reporting never had to mean revenue in the old days. I've read that papers used to run on relatively high margins, and therefore the content, which drove the prestige machine and won the Pulitzer, was the impetus for improvement amongst editors and publishers, as the bottom line was perpetually secure. And the best content meant the best reporting, even if it was dry, cumbersome, or difficult.

Not anymore. Newsrooms are shedding staff, dozens of papers are recycling the same wire stories instead of sending their own people to cover stuff, and the circulation and profit-loss numbers for the ol' papers are an absolute mess.

And this blogging shit is no substitute. Just because I can swear and stuff and anyone with a pulse and a keyboard can "publish", I don't think that means we are headed in the right direction. Reporting, and the craft that is journalism, have shaped our nation and preserved our hint of a democracy just as much as any act of congress or supreme court decision. The uncovering of corruption and scandal in both the public and private sector (Watergate, anyone?) Has been so valuable to our society, it's hard to imagine life without it. Especially for me, a kid who learned how to read from the Plain Dealer, looking for my uncle's bylines and Brett Butler's batting average. But the nation minus the paper may be a proposition we'll all be facing.