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Let Them Eat Content
Internet companies are destroying journalism
Yesterday I wrote about the Hollywood writers strike and the dissonance between the glorious new media future executives talk about and the depressing reality for those of us who create it. Appropriately enough, given the subject matter, I didn't make the point nearly as well as a column in yesterday's New York Times.
David Carr's column, worth reading in its entirety, begins by mentioning that "the city of Chicago agreed to pay out $20 million to settle lawsuits filed by four former death-row inmates who said they had been tortured by police officers and subsequently wrongly convicted," largely because of work by John Conroy, a reporter for an alternative weekly called the Chicago Reader. As it happens, Conroy was just laid off in a cost-cutting measure by Creative Loafing, the appropriately named company that purchased the Reader last summer.
Carr goes on to make the point that investigative reporting is often the first casualty of such cost-cutting, because it's so inefficient. Such journalists might report for weeks before producing a story — and not every lead pays off at all. But he touches on a point that's even more profound: At a time when search engines and user-generated content sites have entered the advertising business, "the newsroom is no longer the core purpose of media, it's just overhead." (Disclosure: I write for the Times, but every time I see the new headquarters I wish they paid me more.)
Carr points out, rightly, that Google and Digg wouldn't be able to find news stories if reporters weren't writing them. It's time to state the obvious: Their success comes at the expense of the media business. But I think he misses the bigger threat to the media: Craigslist and other user-generated content sites. Traditionally, advertising supported the creation of content, in newspapers, in magazines, and on television. But since advertising can easily be sold in places that don't bear the expense of creating content, such as Craigslist and MySpace, news is seen as an unnecessary expense.
David Carr's column, worth reading in its entirety, begins by mentioning that "the city of Chicago agreed to pay out $20 million to settle lawsuits filed by four former death-row inmates who said they had been tortured by police officers and subsequently wrongly convicted," largely because of work by John Conroy, a reporter for an alternative weekly called the Chicago Reader. As it happens, Conroy was just laid off in a cost-cutting measure by Creative Loafing, the appropriately named company that purchased the Reader last summer.
Carr goes on to make the point that investigative reporting is often the first casualty of such cost-cutting, because it's so inefficient. Such journalists might report for weeks before producing a story — and not every lead pays off at all. But he touches on a point that's even more profound: At a time when search engines and user-generated content sites have entered the advertising business, "the newsroom is no longer the core purpose of media, it's just overhead." (Disclosure: I write for the Times, but every time I see the new headquarters I wish they paid me more.)
Carr points out, rightly, that Google and Digg wouldn't be able to find news stories if reporters weren't writing them. It's time to state the obvious: Their success comes at the expense of the media business. But I think he misses the bigger threat to the media: Craigslist and other user-generated content sites. Traditionally, advertising supported the creation of content, in newspapers, in magazines, and on television. But since advertising can easily be sold in places that don't bear the expense of creating content, such as Craigslist and MySpace, news is seen as an unnecessary expense.
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