What We Lose When a Paper Disappears
By Tony Rogers, About.com Guide
This is a tough time for print journalism. For a variety of reasons, newspapers nationwide are either slashing budgets and staff, going bankrupt or even closing down entirely.
Already, some large metropolitan papers - including the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer- have closed or ended their print operations. Others face the same fate. Some say this is simply a natural progression, that the daily paper is as outdated as the eight-track tape.
The problem is this: There are many things newspapers do that simply can't be replaced. Papers are a unique medium in the news business and can't be easily replicated by TV, radio or online news operations.
Here are five things that are lost when newspapers die.
1. Large News Staffs
In any given city or town, the local newspaper will nearly always have the largest staff of journalists of any news operation around.
Take a city like Philadelphia. It's one of the largest media markets in the country, and as such each of the local TV stations has a staff of several dozen reporters, anchors, technicians, etc.
But compare that to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the city's largest newspaper, which has a staff of several hundred reporters and editors. The Inquirer's newsroom staff dwarfs that of all the city's TV news operations combined. The situation is much the same in smaller cities.
2. Beat Reporters
Because newspapers have large staffs, they're able to have reporters follow "beats" - special areas of coverage. One reporter might follow the police beat while another will cover city hall. Reporters who cover a beat over time gain a better grasp of what the beat is all about, and that makes for better stories.
Local TV news operations are too small to assign reporters to specific beats. TV reporters must cover whatever stories and issues pop up on any given day.
3. Comprehensive & In-Depth Coverage
With more reporters, newspapers are simply able to cover more of what's happening in the community, and do so in greater detail.
If you don't believe me, try this experiment: Read your local paper from front to back on any given day, then watch your local TV news.
Chances are you'll find your TV newscast filled with news about crime, accidents and fires. Such stories make good visuals and are relatively easy to cover with just a few reporters.
Your local newspaper will have those same stories. But it'll also carry articles about many other issues. How are the local public schools doing, for instance? Are property taxes going up in your town? Does the city government have enough money to maintain the parks, fix the potholes in the roads and collect garbage regularly?
Such stories aren't visually exciting and are likely to be ignored by TV news.
4. Investigative Reporting
Another benefit of a large newsroom is the ability to assign certain reporters to investigative projects about things like corrupt politicians or dangerous products. Such stories require weeks or even months of digging, and typically only newspapers can afford to have reporters work on such long-term projects.
5. Journalists Who Aren't Millionaires
Most TV journalists earn far more money than the people at home watching them. This raises the question of whether a highly-paid TV reporter or anchor can really feel empathy for the average person - the factory worker who's lost her job, for instance.
Newspaper reporters, on the other hand, are generally paid the kind of modest salaries that average folk earn. I've written more about this here.
JOB, JOBS, EMPLOYMENT
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