This morning Marty Kaiser, editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and new ASNE president, spoke to the 35 participants of this institute on the state of newspapers, and it was surprisingly upbeat.
Kaiser pointed out that there are 1,400 daily newspapers in the country currently, that papers that have closed have had competing papers, and that in this economy, that is what is happening across the board, not just in this industry. He also pointed out that the average Sunday readership is huge. It is not that journalism is in danger; businesses everywhere are struggling. He emphasized the need to change things, and that it will be our students who come up with the new models of journalism that make it new and relevant.
This was nothing short of a revelation for me. I feared this craft I love and love to teach was going the way of 8-track players. I feared that journalism would be turned over to to the lords of the e-mail forwarding world, and that people would believe any source as credible. Scenarios from Idiocracy seemed completely plausible.
I now feel reassured that the basics of good journalism will always be relevant. Teaching students to be critical thinkers, to be curious, to have news literacy, to write well and to report on important issues---these skills will always be required. What is likely to change is the modes of communication, not the underlying skills of communication.
Teresa Gallegos
Blackfoot High School
Blackfoot, Idaho
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Those were some great points. In the span of many newspapers shutting down, I didn't realize that many were "doubled up" in cities. Thinking back to growing up in Phoenix when the Phoenix Gazette shut down, the Arizona Republic certainly was there. And in Albuquerque, the Tribune shut its doors this year, but the Journal is still there. I am not overly comforted by the fact that at least there is still one major paper in the area. The Tribune gave awards and scholarships to high school students, my high school students! The Journal did not pick up that baton and run with it. I think competition is a good thing and we lose that when any paper shuts down. We also lose talented reporters, photographers, and editors, which is something that will never be comforting.
ReplyDeleteI share your fear about the future of the world's intelligence. In a world were student's interest in news is hyperpolarized to either the blogs of their nearest friends or the lives of celebrities I think that interest in the local community is going the way of the disco ball. Our local paper only prints twice a week and has only one section, their nearest competitor is a small city 20 miles away. Since our own town paper has scaled down it seems that now students know even less about their community.
ReplyDeleteI, too, feared that newspapers were going the way of 8-track players (although I grew up in the era of cassette tapes). I found Kaiser's speech eye opening and encouraging. I particularly liked his examples of stories where he used the Internet and blogging to build excitement and increase paper readership. With the way journalism is moving, it is crucial to reach our students through the modalities they are comfortable with - texting, blogging, etc. Kaiser speech showed me that there is a way to combine all these methods of communication. Sharon Nolan, North Canyon H.S., Phoenix, Ariz.
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