I Am the Murderer of News

Brian Till
Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800
Opinion

A lot of conversations I've had over the past few weeks have centered upon the American decline, not in terms of global influence and economic standing, but in terms of journalism. I've found myself speaking with students of the field, freelance writers and grayed reporters, all of us solemnly reflecting, as if a good friend had died.

And then something struck me: I spend hours a day reading news, digging into any paper I can find, from Lebanon's Daily Star to the Buenos Aires Herald, but I've only purchased about a dozen American papers in the last year. I, I realized, am the murderer of news.

I spend my life burrowed in Lexis-Nexis, enamored by any paper available in English. I'll grab pages from a buffet of reportage at work, and devour new stories on my BlackBerry during my commute, but I haven't paid more than $40 for news in the last three years — perhaps not more than $100 in my life. News has simply become too accessible to pay for without a concerted effort. Free quick reads on the train, full pages by front desks at hotels, and, of course, news always available onscreen.
Updated: Tue Dec 09, 2008

A lot of conversations I've had over the past few weeks have centered upon the American decline, not in terms of global influence and economic standing, but in terms of journalism. I've found myself speaking with students of the field, freelance writers and grayed reporters, all of us solemnly reflecting, as if a good friend had died.

And then something struck me: I spend hours a day reading news, digging into any paper I can find, from Lebanon's Daily Star to the Buenos Aires Herald, but I've only purchased about a dozen American papers in the last year. I, I realized, am the murderer of news.

I spend my life burrowed in Lexis-Nexis, enamored by any paper available in English. I'll grab pages from a buffet of reportage at work, and devour new stories on my BlackBerry during my commute, but I haven't paid more than $40 for news in the last three years — perhaps not more than $100 in my life. News has simply become too accessible to pay for without a concerted effort. Free quick reads on the train, full pages by front desks at hotels, and, of course, news always available onscreen.

About the only time I buy newspapers is before boarding planes, when digital sources will be inaccessible. About the only pages I'd paid a dime for while grounded came to me on Nov. 5. Who could pass up the historic "Obama Wins" headlines?

The better question — who amongst my generation even realizes the role he or she has played in the murder of news? Silently skimming off Google's AP content and other major news outlet websites, where advertising tries in vain to offset the cost of reportage, my generation, and many around us, have failed to recognize the part each of us have played in the death of American journalism.

So I made a decision amid this existential crisis. I will soon be a subscriber to four American newspapers: the Miami Herald, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Rocky Mountain News, and the Chicago Tribune — all publications in major financial duress.

My moral qualms solved, the reality remains — what will it take? How will journalism survive?

I've yet to find a member of my generation — as enthusiastic as many are about blogs and "new media" — that'd rather see the Chicago Tribune and L.A. Times fail than cough up $100 for a subscription. But nobody's ever asked us to; nobody ever explained to us that we're the free riders killing the industry.

We've grown up with news being free, whether our parents paid for it or we stumbled across it on the Internet as young teens. In college, many of us found stacks of papers free in dining halls and student unions as publishers showered schools in hopes of building devoted young readers.

To where from here? I think the industry can only survive if big guns — the bankrupt Tribune Company, owner of the L.A. Times and the Chicago Tribune; the New York Times; the Washington Post; Murdoch; McClatchy; and Gannett — manage to collude. They, as a cartel, must demand that we pay for news, be it digital or print. I think a system where subscribers get Sunday print delivered combined with unlimited digital usage is a likely model.

It'll require a far more sophisticated password system than that the New York Times employed when it kept opinion pieces and archived content cordoned off in subscription-only territory, so that people don't share usernames. It'll also require web pages capable of preventing text from being lifted and reprinted. Finally, it'll take a vigilant legal effort by news corporations to keep material from being reproduced or quoted at length on parasitic blogs.

Most importantly, it will require leveraging the power the major newspapers have over their wire services — as major subscribers — to keep the Associated Press, Reuters, and others, from selling material to those operations — such as Google and Yahoo — which distribute content for free. Without this dimension, getting news for free online will continue unabated, and the industry will continue towards utter demise.

Surprisingly, there's an unrelenting faith amongst students of the field, professors, writers, editors, and even managing editors that something will break. That someone will "crack the code," and figure out how to make journalism profitable again.

I don't think there's a code to be cracked; I think there's only a reality to be explained. The news industry is in collapse; a critical piece of successful democracy is in jeopardy. Unless you trust blogs to accurately and consistently report news, or trust government and business to be completely forthcoming with all their misdeeds, you ought to recognize the free ride you've been on and stand to pay your fare.

Brian Till, one of the nation's youngest syndicated columnists, is a research associate for the New America Foundation, a think tank in Washington. He can be contacted at till@newamerica.net. To find out more about the author and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.