I thoroughly enjoyed a panel discussion featuring some of the luminaries of a defunct New York paper. A very bitter bunch, they were very aware what had killed the paper, and terribly resentful at the public.
First of all, they shunned local news, because it was “boring”, and pointing out that there really was no local paper in the whole city, even though that is what the ignorant masses wanted. And as far as State, national or international news went, it was all wire service news, because it was tedious to actually collect news.
What they really wanted to do was report on what the small clique of the rich and artistic did at the cocktail parties they attended, because that was the only news that was interesting, even though the stupid peasants couldn’t appreciate such enlightenment.
So it was the public’s fault that the newspaper failed, even though they did everything that a newspaper is supposed to do, at least according to journalism schools in the US.
It was pretty obvious that what that newspaper had long needed, beyond anything else, was a hard nosed editor and “beat” reporters willing to use shoe leather to collect the news. College degrees were pretty useless in this endeavor.
That no one in the entire city of New York has had the idea to make a local paper, say with one edition per borough, in decades, is it any wonder that New Yorkers don’t buy newspapers like they used to?
But if you talk to a journalism school newspaperman, more than anything else, he will assure you that there is only one way to do a newspaper, and that any other way, at all, is heresy.
Say goodbye to the nice dinosaurs.
Occasionally C-SPAN will run one of the journo conferences/gripefests, and it is fun to watch them keen and moan about the decline of the esteemed profession.
But behind all of it - and this really is what makes it so amusing - is that they cannot and will not admit that they are somewhat of an indulgence.
Yes, a newspaper needs good stories and good reporting to keep it popular, but what pays the bills is advertising, not scoops.
Journos resent this, and they are always trying to keep it under wraps.
Was that the Sun?
I loved the Sun at first, but then it started getting all hoi poloi, covering arts affairs in the Village and museum openings, etc., and lost its flavor as a conservative paper.
Then all of a sudden it was no longer available at any of the news stands, I have no idea why...the Post, Times and Daily News were available, as were the Brooklyn Reporter, Bay Ridge Express, on and on, but all of a sudden all over the borough the vendors stopped carrying the Sun.
About six months after that it shut down.
Ed