osewalrus (osewalrus) wrote,
osewalrus
osewalrus

Link Harvest: Why Newspapers Are Dying

This piece in Sunday's Wash Post illustrates the problem of newspapers, and their self-inflicted wounds. It chronicles a police beat in Baltimore attenuated to non-existence, allowing the police to make assertions that go unchecked and allowing the public access laws to whither away through simple institutional attrition. What is useful to note about this piece is that the reduction of the police beat began in 2001.

Newspaper owners gutted their own product, now come begging for sympathy because they are so critical. Throughout the fight at the FCC on newspaper-broadcast cross ownership, the newspapers owners argued that they were utterly indistinguishable from blogs and other forms of news reporting media. "It's all one big market! We don't need the newspaper cross ownership ban to protect newspaper reporting. No one pays any attention to whether their news comes from print or broadcast or digital."

OK then. So why should I care if newspapers go the way piano roll manufacturers and farriers?
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