The Trouble With Newspapers

There's something troubling about the people who work at newspapers these days: They're the only ones who don't know they're not in the news business any longer.

You see, their product brings me yesterday.

I'm interested in tomorrow.

Therein lies the rub.

In an intriguing way, technology has changed the time continuum. The rise of media convergence and a user's ability to pick and choose what news from which provider gets delivered where and when has effectively taken daily newspaper content and morphed it into the space weekly content previously occupied. Weekly is equivalent to monthly; monthly now needs to be the type of timeless copy that is interesting to read three months after it lands on the coffee table.

The landscape shift has mainstream editors bemoaning the rise and popularity of 24-hour cable and Internet bloggers, who have cornered the market in citizen journalism and reactionary commentary and decimated newspaper readership. That's the funny part about all this: When faced with a crisis that affects their very future, print journalists allow all the skills, training and resources that allow them to think critically and find answers to any problem in the world fly right out of their heads. Poof.

The reality is, bloggers and citizen journalists aren't a threat to newspapers. The real threat is the arrogance found in the hierarchy of newspaperdom, where editors who haven't seen the light of day in eons think they know what you want to read in your daily newspaper. Telling them they're failing you -- by failing to be relevant to your lives today -- is like talking to a wall. Having this discussion with dyed-in-the-wool, old-school journalists often illicits involuntary body flinching, on their part, as they deny they're making grand and sweeping assumptions about you and what you need to know. (I tell you this for your own protection. I've learned to stay out of arm's length when stepping into this type of conversation, or positioning someone between me and the ink-stained wretch in question.) It's easy for them to live in denial, because they have someone to blame. They blame the people who, ironically, could be great sources... if they'd open their eyes long enough to realize those bloggers and citizen journalists have something to interesting to say. Granted, these people usually have only one card to play, and their commitment to speaking out on that one issue is directly proportional to how passionate they feel about the subject.

And that gets to the heart of the matter: When's the last time you read a quote in the newspaper that dripped in passion, as opposed to spin?

Mainstreamers make much to do about how they "listen," and how the news of tomorrow needs to be a "conversation." All wonderful ideas, but let's get down to the nitty gritty: For a conversation of any meaning to take place, the right questions need to be asked. Sometimes, what's called for are really hard questions, posed to people of many different backgrounds, ages and races. All of this calls for hard work, not only in the questioning, but in finding the sources. It also takes a reporter who's smart enough to make some sense of it all.

Editors make the mistake of thinking they know what's going on around them, simply because they're situated in places called newsrooms. But news doesn't happen inside newsrooms. The best place to look for news is to take the English muffin approach: inside nooks and crannies of communities, where real people frequent. Seems like most journalists are happy to traverse the tourist routes these days ... then they shake their heads and say they can't figure out why no one's reading what they're producing.

If journalists were to have a meaningful conversation, they would find out something pretty interesting. News has changed. Not only because technology has changed the shelf life of news, but because technology has changed our lives. Our communities are no longer limited to our geography. What all that means is that I no longer care about things that don't affect me in some way. With my laptop, PDA and cell phone, I've created my own personal media universe, where I decide what types of news I want to read. My personal universe has no room for random transactional crime. The two-alarm blaze in Brooklyn is no consequence to me unless, of course, it was an act of vandalism and the suspect was last seen heading toward my place. See how it's all about me?

Here's what my personal universe looks like: I care about my health, so I find a variety of news outlets to bring me news of issues affecting my health. I've personalized it enough to alert me if my hayfever will kick tomorrow, or if I'll need SPF protection. I care about what I pay in taxes, but not school taxes, because like most of my generation, I marry later and have kids later. Since I don't have them yet, I continue to move around, at a rate of every three years or so. Needless to say, I don't know my neighbors, or the guys who run the stores on Main Street. I know I can get the best of whatever it is of what I want via the Internet, and that includes food delivery. My best friend lives about 50 miles away. My nearest family member; 500 miles. I care about what's going on around them, and consider that local news, too.

Since geography doesn't contain me, I need to know what issues affect me no matter where I go. I want to hear from a variety of people and backgrounds, so I understand the whole picture. I want to make sure if I have to make a decision, I make one that's fair and just all around, not just for me or those like me. I want to know the best the world has to offer, and the worst, so I can help change it.

Bringing me the news you think I want because you've always covered it the way you are now is no longer working for me. Sorry. I don't care that you need an auto accident to fill the inside column of page 4, because that's always where you put such an item. Shake up the pagination department, the same way you need to shake up the news staff. Newspapers are supposed to be about me, not you and how you want to do your job. Until you understand your readers have plenty of places to go without you, you won't grasp the concept of why they've abandoned you.

Instead of focusing on bringing me yesterday's news, do what only newspapers, in this age of multimedia domination, can do: Bring me perspective on what happened yesterday, so I know how it will affect my tomorrow.