Maybe it’s because I spend all day on the computer, but I’ve noticed my reading habits have changed dramatically in the past year, particularly in terms of news consumption.
More and more, newspapers are feeling peripheral to me — and that’s a wrenching statement for a veteran dead-tree journalist and news junkie to make.
I suppose the worm started to turn when I turned to blogging, which put me in close proximity to my laptop most hours of the day, either to write, research or listen to podcasts of local meetings. Then I added a job that involves searching the Web and rewriting stories for a variety of business and industrial readers.
The 2008 Tribune redesign also didn’t help. Newspapers will never compete with wide-screen TVs no matter how much newshole you devote to over-sized photos and graphics (what’s with that retro ’70s typeface, anyway?). They’ll just turn off the devotees who want to read the news. And once turned off, most of us will never bother to return.
Instead, we’ll flock to whatever online news source we prefer — if not many, many sources — and read, watch, listen to and comment upon our news that way. If dinosaurs like me are doing it, there is no hope for printed newspapers. This is old news.
Question is: How quickly will the e-news format evolve and what are the costs? And I’m not referring to start-up costs (negligible) or advertising costs (negligible) or user costs (non-existent). I’m talking about the impact this new digital age will have on our understanding of the world and the independence and credibility of whatever remains of “the press” going forward.
I’ll be back with what I’ve learned about one exploding form — hyperlocal journalism — on Friday. It hasn’t been at all what I expected when I launced the DGreport three years ago.
My favorite shows are Frontline and the like documentaries found on various cable channels. The 10 PM news is laughable…the newspapers are slighlty better (and I speak of the websites)…the news websites are contain very little in-depth coverage with much of it wire service stuff. I feel like I live in Topeka, Kansas where the newspaper employed 2 columnists and three reporters with the rest of it AP, Reuters or shared news stories.
Remember when Carol Marin did the 10 PM news with a focus on one story or how Channel 2 is doing it today. They are a bit different, a little bit more in depth and bring a different angle to what the other 10 PM news programs bring.
Elaine, the shockingly, increasingly quick decline of the printed news source not hurts the physical newspaper, but the news I get is very shallow on the web. Heck, I get my news from Yahoo more than anything else. Sad, but true.
Man Killed Crossing Train Tracks…Bugle Feb 17th.
Short article….Man hit by Amtrak train near Belmont Ave. trying to catch eastbound Metra…..4th pedestrian death in DG by second train near a DG station in last approx. 15 years….. Trains using Union Pacific or CSX lines must lay back and not enter station (too dangerous) if another train is in or exiting station….Not so on BNSF lines….Trains are always speeding by stopped trains in station on BNSF line and our citizens are getting killed….BNSF has a second train warning system that almost no one is aware of……chimes go off if second train approaching……come on BNSF, this is a deadly problem, and we need your help to correct it.
I view at least 4 websites (BBC, CNN, some entainment sites, Trib, and some locals like CLTV , Southtown or the locals where the breaking stories are) per day for news and recieve Twitter updates. But I agree the news is very “shallow” on the web. I also read the local blogs for some areas. I still receive and very much enjoy the Sunday Paper. Then there are all the Monthly Newsletters from museums, etc. containing stories about research and the like.
It seems some people will never learn to respect the fact that the gates are down and you DO NOT CROSS when they are. I grew up blocks from the Rock Island tracks and there were accidents and deaths regularly. I was taught to never try and beat the train.
When the gates are down there is NO crossing the tracks period.
Are you kidding me ! Blame the BNSF for the problem . Those fatalities you speak of, did they all happen “on” the tracks? Why of course they did, did the train come off the tracks or swerve even a little bit to hit them? Did it sneak down the track, very quiet, (thinking Elmer Fudd hunting rabbits) and then bam. Nope again.
Those trains lay on the horns when approaching the crossings, the warning devices start a second audible alarm to warn individuals of another approaching train.
I seem to recall another horrible instance where, per witnesses, an individual drove around stopped vehicles and downed crossing gates only to get smacked. and then the family wanted to blame the trains for not providing a better means to stop people. Sure seemed that everyone else that was stopped at the down gates realized you weren’t supposed to go around the gate.
More people need to start taking responsibility for their actions. It wasn’t the BNSF’s fault. It was a horrible mistake, and tragically an individual did not survive that mistake.
Newspapers are dying. “Traditional” news is dying…and I think, its a combination of web 2.0, bad reporting and frivolous American culture.
Neil Postman said it…we’re Amusing Ourselves to Death. Tiger Woods, really? The mess this country is in…and they spend hours broadcasting Tiger Woods.
Newspapers, journalists, don’t go far enough. JFK warned about suppression of the press. Its here. Dan Rather admits it. Former news organization editors admit it. The free press is all but gone…instead there’s advertising agendas.
http://tiny.cc/fc2bl
The internet has expanded our choice again. Like the early days of the US, when pamphleteers were everywhere. The explosion of online sources, reference sites, DIGGing, etc. is representative of our desire for more personal, individual news that’s not fed to us by 6 conglomerate corporations.
Scott, what you’re saying is sad but true. And it’s led not just to the “death” of the news, but to people’s trust in anything they hear.
I am frustrated because I am the type of person who likes to gathers facts and consider things from all sides without jumping to a conclusion. Aside from a precious few magazines, I can’t find in-depth analysis that explores differing viewpoints and allows the reader to decide for him/herself.
Instead, it’s either blaring, unsupported headlines or someone pre-digesting the issue and trying to tell me what I should think or how I should feel about it.
Don’t sound the death knell for newspapers just yet. Apple’s IPad has the potential to save the medium, or at least redefine it and make it viable again.
Instead of delivering your paper to the house, it would arrive as a link in your email every morning. You pay a weekly (monthly? yearly?) subscription fee much as you do now. No need to pull on a robe and navigate the icy driveway in order to free the Tuesday Tribune from a snowbank. Just wake up, click a link and poof, morning paper. Saves ink, saves trees, and saves me from seeing you in your bathrobe first thing in the morning.
Dog would be out of a job though..
The manner in which the product is delivered may very well save the medium and make it viable again, but I agree with Scott when he says that “traditional” news is dying. Investigative and in-depth reporting has been disappearing to accomodate Show Biz and Celebrity Worship puff pieces in a pititful attempt to pander to the lowest common denominator (see Chicago Tribune).
Unfortunately, the law of supply and demand is very much in effect as newspapers struggle to maintain readership in an audience that has the attention span of a gnat. You have only to witness the garbage that appears on TV year after year-must be a lot of people watching it.
Greg
Many share your thoughts and that is what is so troubling. During my 17 years or so involved in railroad safety I have met and become friends with several parents who lost their children in railroad accidents. One young girl was a passenger in a car driven by her brother. She was killed in a train versus car accident. Another young boy was coming home from little league practice and standing too close to the tracks. He has been in a permanent care facility since the accident some almost 20 years ago. Another parent who I have met several times lost his young son when a Metra train blew through a station. The boy’s father had just gotten off the train on the other side. The young boy saw his father and ran across the tracks. He was struck and killed. His parents, and I believe young sister, witnessed the accident. There are many simple things that can be done to help prevent these types of accidents. One would be to inform the citizens of Downers Grove that there is a second train warning system in place. I know that Metra’s former safety director and someone who I know very well, thinks as I do about the second train warning system on the BNSF. Why have a second train warning system and not tell anyone about it. It is that second train, the one no one seems to be paying attention to that causes far too many accidents. Another point, two of the four pedestrians killed in DG when trains blew through the station and another train was either stopped in the station or exiting were legally blind.
Evening,
I don’t see why wanting to make people responsible for their own actions is so troubling? And if many do share my thoughts (scarey thought in itself) then why does it seem we cater to the minority thought so often.
Again, your examples all tragic. And do not for a minute think I do not realize the huge loss a family experienced with those accidents… But.. you leave out details. And I think your data incorrect by including the baseball player example.
Should the public be more educated on train safety, absolutely! Should you lay the majority fault on the railroad, I would disagree. If a better public education program should be developed, then put something together, get the word out. Huge accomplishments are done now a days by great movements by concerned citizens.
Repeating, I think it was a horrible thing and wished it didn’t happen, but I believe from what I heard, one of your examples was totally avoidable and the cause of the accident and how to avoid it is taught in basic driving schools. Don’t go around down RR gates.
I am not opposed to solutions to train accidents that do not increase the cost of my commute. We do have many solutions in place today (the most effective is that it is illegal to cross when the gates are down). .
But there is a certain amount of personal responsibility that comes into play here. Parents need to be responsible for their children and teach them about the danger of moving vehicles. That is part of being a parent.
I believed that horrible things could happen to me if I ran into a road or across a railroad track when I was a kid, so I took it very seriously. My parents made teaching that a priority.
I am always amazed when driving down Dunham when South lets out. The number of students that cross in front of traffic anywhere they please is astounding.
Pedestrians have the right-of-way, but they also need to use reasonable judgment and caution. We need better teaching BY PARENTS of our young people, and a few jay-walking tickets at South (and the Main Street crossing). There – I just created two full-time-equivalent DG PD positions that pay for themselves.
Oh rats! my comment did not post last night!
Many an information pundit has said that the one thing that newspapers do that electronic forms of media don’t do is local news. National networks like CNN and MSNBC aren’t going to cover the problems with Springfield or Chicago.
Local broadcast news tends to cover stories of an immediate nature, like shootings, accidents, and the like. They don’t have the time to focus on issues that require a lot of research and investigation.
Twenty-five years ago, the Tribune tried to a a New York Times Midwest, with a lot of national and international news. While it still has very good coverage of news outside of Chicago, it has shifted to more coverage of news in the state and Chicagoland.
Even the business section focuses more on companies which have a large presence in the area, leaving coverage of business outside of the area to the likes of the Wall Street Journal.
The Wall Street Journal also brought up an interesting perspective. It saw its readership declining as local newspapers started increasing their business coverage. So the Journal shifted its focus from strictly presennting facts to explaining how a news story affects readers.
This was before WWII. The Journal pointed out tha on December 8, 1941, other papers carried accounts of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Journal led with how the U.S. entry into WWII was going to affect business, with the War and Navy Departments needing to buy exstraordinary amounts of equipment, and the military needing large chunks fo the workforce to become officers and enlisted men.
I still buy a paper from John (BIG really great Trib story about him BTW), but more and more just browsing it, and not really reading it. Blame the Crackberry; it makes browsing too easy on the commute.
Here is the link to the aforementioned article on John:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/happynews/ct-met-blind-seller-20100228,0,7236664.story?page=1