Web 2.0 Television

(This post has been back-dated, originally written and posted here due to Web domain name shift.)

By now we all know circulation continues in large part to spiral ever downward, as eerie* Editors Weblog reminds us today, and newspaper Web operations remain a central talking point for media news. (*Come now, all this grim news about newspapers surfacing once more, right around Halloween? The state of the industry does seem at least Rocky if not a Horror Show (not to be confused with horrorshow) for ailing newspaper companies, doesn't it? Right.)

Newspaper owners may not like Jeff Jarvis' idea of outsourcing newspaper content online, but he makes a good point in this turbulent time for the industry — one that's intended, I think, to help newpapers focus, focus, focus: "… if you don’t want to go to the expense of having a business section, if it’s not core to what you do, then you can link to one. And that forces you to decide what is core. What is it that just you can do and that can’t be outsourced?"

Jarvis' post echoes an earlier one he did, also today, in which he discusses what needs to go from newspapers — "Trimming newspaper fat vs. meat". Jarvis continues the debate by posting parts of Washington Post columnist Howard Kurtz's response to the responses Jarvis, Slate's media columnist Jack Shafer and other bloggers wrote. Main points I'll paraphrase from Jarvis: let the editors find the innovative ways to cover news, they ought to know how; put the resources into the reporting you need, not what you don't; bloggers can help local coverage, though we all know they won't replace reporters. Opines Jarvis: 

The fantasizing we see in in newsrooms that believe newspapers can and should continue with business-as-usual, that newsrooms need to be as big as they are to get their real job done, and that they are doing a good job now.

I continue to believe that cutbacks will force newspapers to decide what they really are. The brave, wise, and strategic editors will get rid of the crap and invest more in the kind of reporting Kurtz properly celebrates. The wussy, job-protecting editors will do just what we see them doing: whining.

The need for that focus — on what a particular paper does well — relates not only to falling circulation numbers but to that issue's effects, too, which Poynter's Jim Romenesko links to via an article about the stress of being a newspaper journalist today featuring Chris Lopez. Lopez, who recently lost his job at the Contra Costa Times and even more recently sat on a "future of newspapers" panel at the Public Relations Society of America conference, says, as Romenesko quotes him, on whether newspapers have a future:

I'll go with this theory that I do in my own daily work. I'm going to subscribe to the theory that newspapers are dying and we're on our deathbed — I'm walking dead myself as a newspaper journalist. So what I do is first mourn the fact that I'm dying. Then I get over that emotional shock. I still have time to celebrate this print product that I put out every day. So I'm going to celebrate it with my work, and I'm going to celebrate it with my journalism as long as they let me keep doing it.

Of all days to post a quote about the walking dead! (or hit Wikipedia.) Strong words, though — but Lopez ought to know.

Dan Gillmor, meanwhile, says in an interview with Dan Kennedy of Commonwealth that he doesn't want to hold back traditional media but instead, to help the business adapt. 

His goal: to help the nascent citizen-journalism movement raise its standards and boost its influence, while also helping mainstream media organizations use technology to reach out to what he likes to call the “former audience.”

“Contrary to some folks in this area, I’m a big fan of traditional media,” Gillmor says. “I want to help them work in ways that they’ve never done before. I want to work with people doing citizen media independently, and in places where that intersects with journalism, I hope I can help.”

Cool. Go Dan Go — and go us go, WeMedia and all that entails in the CJ realm. By the way, I never knew he played guitar. (From Kennedy's article, linked via Romenesko: "He was raised in upstate New York and lived for many years in Vermont, where he worked as a stringer for The Boston Globe and The New York Times. During that time Gillmor played guitar, sang, and wrote songs for a band called Road Apple — “kind of a pre-Phish Phish,” he calls it.")

Image of Saturday Night Live from RockyMusic.org. Happy Halloween!