P-I managing editor David McCumber is right: It’s sad that so many couples whose entire income depends on Hearst are about to be unemployed.
P-I managing editor David McCumber is wrong: Even if the P-I goes under, “thieves, bloviators, and grifters” will not breathe a “sigh of relief,” because the P-I is hardly the only news source in town keeping tabs on thieves, bloviators, and grifters. The daily newspaper, for all its self-importance, has been displaced by a thousand smaller, nimbler competitors. The days of bloated newsrooms with hundreds of reporters covering every conceivable subject are over. The industry’s dinosaurs just don’t know it yet.
What? All most blogs are are links to or rehashings of articles reported by actual newspapers. What are they going to link to once all the newspapers are gone?
That’s what I like about the alt weeklies. You all stay humble.
Democracy as we know it will indeed perish if we have to rely on Erica C. Barnett for our Seattle news.
Meanwhile, the alt-weeklies will continue to stick with knee-jerk advocacy journalism despite a dearth of thorough, objective news reporting. So really, everyone loses.
The sad thing is they didn’t cover all available stories.
What amazes me about the Puget Sound is that it increased its population by more than 1 million in the past decade, yet almost none of the stories of new comers have been told.
The Old Guard of “Huskies” and “Cougs” dominate the local newspapers, radio and television. In an area of weekly shootings and disturbances, people like Jeff Renner present the 1970s ideal of Seattle as everyone “taking the boat out for the weekend” or leaving early on a Friday to “hit Snoqualmie”. Yeah, look around, all you see are 6′ 5″ nordic people in cable knit sweaters…right ??
There’s more than 1 million invisible men, woman and children in Puget Sound. The media only acknowledges them when their Section 8 apartments burn down.
What makes you all so damn sure alt weekly papers like The Stranger will be spared from the Newspaper Apocalypse? If I’m not mistaken, daily newspapers all over the country are going out of business for two reasons: declining ad revenue and free online versions of their papers. Does The Stranger have access to some magical funding source that the rest of us aren’t aware of?
Personally, I fear a world in which the only news available comes from people’s personal blogs. These “nimbler competitors” don’t know where their ass is half the time, and some of them can barely put together a coherent sentence. With the death of the Dailies comes the death of professional journalism.
Be careful, Erica, that you’re not out on the street soon and that some displaced P-I reporter hasn’t replaced you.
Because you see, they’re REAL journalists, and any one of them is worth ten of you.
Hey ECB – I’m usually a fan, but I’ve got to disagree. Most of the blogs (looking at your own here, too) either link to or include quotes from actual newspaper reporters. What’s going to happen when they crumble? Truly, you do some great reporting on local news (I do appreciate), but that isn’t all there is on the Slog or on other blogs either. The other unfortunate, in my opinion, is that we will be left with the Times – which is a lesser paper in comparion to the PI
It IS sad that Old Media is dying but they have themselves to blame. New Media didn’t show up over night and the dinosaurs in charge have had 10+ years to adapt or die. Many of them are failing and they will die but it will not be the end of journalism. We’re in the middle of a very important, exciting transitional time for journalism. Some of it will suck, but some of it is exciting as hell. Enjoy it and quit mourning for those who self-willed their own demise.
A thousand competitors? Bullshit, Erica. Not everyone with a blog is a legitimate source for local news.
Ivan @ 7: Sort of like a “real” Democratic Party activist replaced you, huh?
sounds like someone wasn’t able to get a job at said bloated, dinosaur-like newsroom.
Give me a three-paragraph brief written by Jennifer Langston over ANY-fucking-thing written by bitter amateur Erica Barnett, whose self-importance knows no bounds.
(Cue Savage to explain what poor, misunderstood Erica Barnett REALLY meant.)
Do tell, ECB: Who are “a thousand smaller, nimbler competitors” you speak of? “A thousand”? Is that like “a hundred”? You write pretty someday!