David Carr Is Lost In A Dream Of Yesterday

David Carr details the dismay and pessimism that is moving through the ranks of new owners of newspapers like Sam Zell, who is trying to sell Newsday to gain some much needed cash for the Tribune Company, and Brian Tierney, who has announced that expenses at his conglomerate of newspapers must be cut by at least 10% immediately. In a piece that has nothing but bad news for newspapers in it, Carr turns out this observation, that seems to be disconnected from the reality he is chronicling.

[from Newspapers’ New Owners Turn Grim - New York Times by David Carr]

Publishing has been through some deep recessions before and has cut costs to maneuver through, but this time staffs have already been cut to the bone. The San Jose Mercury News has cut its staff by more than half since 2000. At many papers, foreign bureaus are gone, movie critics have dropped away and statehouse reporters are a thing of a past.

Newspapers continue to gain on the Web in part because they have the best talent, the biggest news hole and the most comprehensive coverage. [emphasis mine] But that value, which gave many papers their near-monopoly, could be wiped out by a sustained downturn.

According to the “State of the News Media” report, the extensive cuts across the industry will cripple any potential rebound as newspapers lose authority and franchises in their markets.

Mr. Appert remains confident that quality newspapers with a good grip on their audiences will find a way to remain in business through a combination of online and off-line revenues, even if the historically high margins will appear only in the rearview mirror.

John Morton, a longtime newspaper analyst, is more pessimistic. “The industry is meeting these challenges by cutting, by reducing the news hole and the people who fill it,” he said.

So, Carr tells us that the newspapers are 'gaining' in their Web activities relative to non-newspapers? And that newspapers have the 'best talent'? Uh, while I feel that there are many fine people working in newspapers today, I counter that the media landscape is changing so quickly in that it is ridiculous to assert that the folks scribbling madly for the companies that are falling into the abyss right before our eyes are somehow to be judged as 'the best talent'. That is something like being the best at rubbing sticks together to make a fire in a world where matches can be found in any store.

I could make the same sort of quibbles about Carr's statements about newspapers' news hole and the comprehensiveness of their news coverage. Carr doesn't want to buy into today's reality. Newspapers aren't competing against other established media, like television and radio, any more. They are competing against the totality of the Web.

At the core of Carr's misunderstanding of what is going on is the belief that things could turn around for papers, and that given enough time or the right combination of tactics and investment, newspapers are going to find the winning formula to buy themselves a place in the new media landscape.

Wrong.

The people formerly known as the audience, we, the edglings, have decided that the newspapers (and other old school media) are not going to manage the news hole for us. We want to decide how many inches to apply to McCain and Obama today, or how many inches to use for the NCAA finals. The formulas and incantations of newspaper people have less and less meaning, here, on the Web.

Carr's dreams of a soft landing for newspapers is just that.

The Big Band era is coming to an end, and while some oldsters are going to keep on listening to Count Basie and Duke Ellington, most of us are moving on to rock and roll. Many of the players will find new gigs, experiment with new musical forms, but some won't. Some will retire, open bars, or find something else to do. Zell and Tierney may have to take their losses and find something else to invest in. David Carr may have to start blogging for the Huffington Post, or run for office.

Carr is dreaming of a time where there was a place for scratchy old 78s by Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole, but we are four or five eras of music past that.

Yes, I still read the thinner and thinner New York Times regularly, but less of us do that everyday. And online, there is a brave new world, where I am learning more about what's going on through Twitter, blogs, and an increasingly social web than could ever be confined in a few dozen pages of newsprint.

Comments

[Michael Turro]

I wonder if the fact that a newspaper company paid him to write this piece and then that newspaper company published that piece in a newspaper has any influence on Carr's claim that it's the newspapers who have the best talent?

[Joseph Tilden]

This is an inept and inaccurate analogy for the era of the big bands ended in the 1940s.

Are there random words missing that would make his comments make sense?

[David Burn]

You really learn more from Twitter, blogs, and an increasingly social web than from The New York Times? I'm shocked by that. And that's coming from someone who contributes to five blogs, has a Twitter account and all the rest. Maybe it's the word "learning" I'm stuck on. Social media lets me learn what a bunch of pretty smart people are doing and thinking at any given moment. That's cool. But the MSM, particularly our nation's great papers help me learn what's going on in the community/nation/world. Two different kinds of learning.