The Friday Spicy: Three Questions About This Week in Journalism that ONLY an Academic Will Ask…
Welcome to the start of what I hope will be an ongoing but brief media critique of the questions that didn’t get asked by the people best empowered to ask them: those with regular gigs at news orgs with the huge platforms from which to scale their arguments.
#1: Is The New York Daily News Really Worth Whining About?
The New York Daily News laid off half of all its staff*- and this is really, really terrible for all these people without jobs and certainly the consequence of corporate greed and epic mismanagement. While The NYDN has been terrific in terms of repurposing its woods and tabloid front pages as the OG news meme for the digital age, scholars have classified its content as “junk news,” and NYDN has a lot of people doing a lot of clickbait. Will we see fewer stories like this week’s Cheetos Cheese Dust and Eight Other Mysteries Solved? Will New Yorkers truly be underserved if the next “pizza rat” is never covered? (actually don’t answer that question: possibly, yes, the spirit of “pizza rat” has kept many of us going for far too long). I love The NYDN; I’ve done field research there; I adore the fact that two years ago I saw cartoons drawn on ink and paper. But how many of these layoffs were fat that needed to be shed; how many of these layoffs represent the death of journalists covering truly important news? Time will tell.
#2. Why Doesn’t The White House Press Just Do A Reverse Media-Blackout and Shut Out Trump?
Kaitlin Collins definitely did not deserve to get banned by the Trump White House press office for asking hard questions at a normal question-shouting opportunity. We’ve heard a bit over the past few weeks about how WH journalists are finally letting their pals finish asking the questions and following up if the answers offered aren’t answers. What would happen if the press just didn’t show up to an open press event? This kind of collaboration would force a real response from Trump and infuriate him. It would be the ultimate hardball that mainstream media could play.
This will NEVER ever happen. Journalism collaboration among competitors is alive and well in the non-profit world, but not so much among for-profit entities. Not only is Trump coverage reliable cash money for news orgs, providing an economic incentive for coverage, but if just one news org were to break a vow not to show up, they’d score an easy scoop and win the day. The competitive appetites in DC bureaus would and could never make this ultimate hardball play work.
#3. What Happens When LA Times’ New Owner Patrick Soon-Shiong Gets Sick of Losing Cash?
So great to hear that John Henry isn’t planning on selling The Globe any time soon. And it’s really, really good to hear that LA Times’ owner and biotech billionare Patrick Soon-Shiong has a one-hundred year plan for the august newspaper, including restoring it to its rightful place in American public discourse.
Does anyone remember Chris Hughes, that Facebook billionaire who invested in The New Republic with promises to keep it afloat and to respect its history. Then he burned cash on a new building, got sick of losing cash and tried to turn Silicon Valley principles into journalism ones, and then fired Frank Foer without telling him. Then, he bailed. Billionaires have limits, too. Warren Buffett, a big fan of newspapers, seems to be losing some patience, too, wanting Lee Enterprises to manage his properties. He’s also stated that he’s betting on two newspapers, The New York Times and The Journal to survive, and nada else. I’m calling it now, sadly, that Soon-Shiong’s civic impulses will quickly meet the reality of how costly it is to do really good newspaper journalism.
This is rough and not edited and intended to push buttons. The quick three approach and roundup is an idea stolen from Matt Carroll at Northeastern University, whose “3 things to read” is essential each week. Hopefully I can keep my grumpy up and going each Friday for y’all.
{*correction — I accidentally wrote ALL)
