By Michael A. Chihak
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We are as ill-prepared for newspapering’s demise as we were for economic meltdown.
An odd comparison, perhaps, because we will recover from economic arrhythmia in relatively short time. Replacing the role of newspapers could take longer, and that has the potential to threaten our democracy.
Newspapers for more than two centuries were American democracy’s bulwark: constitutionally protected watchdogs. The founding fathers knew a free press would sustain democracy, so they included it among the Constitution’s foremost rights.
The recent demise of several daily newspapers and the impending deaths of others are making shaky the frame upon which democracy sits. Without free-flowing information, the experiment that Abraham Lincoln defined as “of … by … for the people” will not endure.
We inherited the right to self-govern, and keeping a check on those who presume to act for us is how we do so. Newspapers have by tradition and practice been the best at it, shining light on government.
Newspapers now disappearing from the landscape have all but been taken for granted in their support of democratic self-governance. Their deaths and the casting of their staffs of journalists into the growing economic diaspora are heartbreaking.
Saying newspapers brought it upon themselves is largely true, but not for the reason you think. Slant – perceived or real – isn’t much of a factor; newspapers of all political stripes are in trouble, if not on the brink of failure.
Objective reporting, however one defines it, was a relatively new idea in newspapering, emerging in the wake of the American journalistic jingoism of World War II. “Fair and balanced” and “we report; you decide” are no more than good marketing slogans; they are not put into practice by their purveyors.
Business avarice and arrogant resistance to change are atop the list of reasons for the industry’s turn south.
Retrospection hardly seems worthwhile, but please permit a bit of it. In the latter half of my more than three decades in newspapering, we shifted the emphasis to the business part of the newspaper business and away from the news part, and we boasted of being the only business mentioned in and protected by the Constitution.
That missed the point, because while newspaper owners made plenty of money in the free market, their origins and their ongoing primacy were to inform, to watchdog, nurture democratic ideals and drive stakes into the hearts of faulty notions.
We changed for business, and the legacy of the origins and the primacy suffered for it. Now newspapering’s breathing is shallow and rattling.
New technologies turned newspapering into a fragile sheet of glass, dropping it to the ground where it broke into dozens of pieces. Newspaper bosses tried putting it back together rather than recognizing each piece as a new opportunity. Now it’s too late.
Newspapers will remain as one piece of glass, but they won’t be anywhere near as dominant as they were or cover the spectrum as they did for two centuries.
Mass migration to millions of other information forums and the economic implosion are changing newspapers from mass appeal organs to niche products, just as so many other information pipelines are, often by design.
It threatens us because other forums are not yet able to support democracy – that is, self-government – the way newspapers have.
What local TV newsroom or radio station or blogger will consistently watchdog local institutions? Even at their lowest levels of staffing, daily newspapers have always had the largest numbers of reporters poking into the goings-on of public entities and businesses, often outnumbering the combined total reporting staffs at local TV and radio stations, weekly publications and news-related blogs.
Newspapers have been key parts of the framework supporting democracy. Their demise threatens democratic balance, because other media entities don’t have the resources to pick up the slack, at least not yet.
Some say bloggers, tweeters and all those easy-to-dislike radio and cable talkers have replaced newspapers. Don’t be deluded. The information frontier is still like the Wild West. If you think your six-shooter is loaded with “the truth,” watch your back, because every badass with a blog, microphone, camera or Facebook page will be gunning for you.
Having the loudest opinion is de rigueur; possessing the facts is passé. Rush Limbaugh and Keith Olbermann compete for narcissist of the week; Rachel Maddow and Bill O’Reilly claim the market on fatuousness. They have counterparts nationally and locally, peddling exaggerations and distortions without checks or filters.
Millions buy in, affirming another Lincolnism: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time … “
The contract we inherited as democracy-loving Americans requires us to live up to the rest of his observation: “ … but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”
The only way we can avoid being fooled is with unfettered, vibrant, believable sources of information. We must insist on them and help rebuild them sooner rather than later.
Michael A. Chihak was a daily newspaper journalist for 38 years, culminating in eight years as editor and publisher of his hometown newspaper, the Tucson Citizen. He also worked for the Associated Press, USA Today and The Salinas Californian. He now lives in San Francisco where he is executive director of the nonprofit Communications Leadership Institute, serving as a communications consultant and trainer to nonprofits.
