No News = Good News

To change something, build a new model that makes the
existing model obsolete. - Buckminster Fuller

I have been known to take my laptop to the bathroom with me. I say this not out of my insatiable desire to make others uncomfortable by sharing minor, inappropriate details (it's fun, try it). Rather, I point it out because I may well be ahead of the curve - inadvertently preparing for a future where you no longer hear the rustle of newsprint in the stall next to you, but instead the peck-tap-peck of keyboards. Yes, the traditional newspaper may well not make it through the next decade.

The death-knell has already sounded for some major papers - Denver's Rocky Mountain News died last week and Tuscon's got one going soon. The Tribune company's bankrupt, though for now it's just financial purgatory as their many papers are still being printed. Others, such as the SF Chronicle are "restructuring" - a PC way of saying "panickedly selling off assets and cutting expenses (i.e., jobs)." Even the NY Times is 400 million in the hole. Meanwhile, all the other news outlets can't keep quiet about it - NPR's hit on it several times recently, and even the BBC's been talking. Some think it's inevitable, some fear it as a sign/source of devaluation for journalism, others shrug and read the Onion, missing the humor entirely.

For my part, I don't think we'll live in a world without newsprint within our lifetime. For starters, it's not just online journalism that's hurting the papers - free papers are doing quite well, hitting the same markets at everyone's favorite price. The desire for the tangible, tactile experience of reading a paper is still there - it's just that between the ad-driven free model and the instant-access online model, few see the need to shell out subscription fees for either information or newsprint-rustling pleasures. The old model of print journalism has been rendered obsolete - Buckminster Fuller-ed, if you will.

However, what really interests me - irks me, even - is how many folks are calling the failure of the traditional newspaper business model (and it is just the business model that's failing) a "blow to democracy" or lauding it as the "death of impartial journalism." For starters, part of me is almost glad to see these old daily papers go - most, like the rest of the mass media, are owned by huge conglomerates. This obviously injects a large amount of homogenization into coverage, and potentially into perspective; but more dangerously, this amplifies advertiser influence to the point where stories potentially threatening to them can get canned for fear of the consequences (or, due to direct threats, such as Monsanto shutting down exposes on its bovine growth hormones). No, saying goodbye to corporate media does not sadden me, and I've no fear of a hastening fascist state because of it. Quite the opposite.

Many criticize internet journalism as "lacking objectivity." All journalism lacks objectivity. Internet journalism increases access, and moreover, it increases the voices involved in that journalism dramatically. There aren't just a thousand news sites - there are thousands of blogs, thousands of individuals conveying and commenting on whatever happenings...happen...to be happening. Never mind that much of it is shit. That is democracy, kids. Of course, this exponentially increases the amount of "bad information" (which is often a fairly subjective notion, anyway) - but is this really a problem? I'd argue that the flood of contradictory, untrustworthy information is one of the greatest gifts of the internet age. Twenty years ago, the average person absorbed information from "official" sources - books, newspapers, TV - under the general assumption that, surely, it was truth (or close to it). Now, everyone is acutely aware that we must think critically about information. And it isn't just that we question the veracity of knowledge, but its importance. That flood of noise, those millions of voices out there on the internet - they make us acutely aware that we need to decide what is relevant for ourselves, in a way that a world of homogenized TV, newsprint, and radio did not.

Pretty cool. At least as long as the WiFi signal is strong in my stall.