Brilliant Drivel

Brilliant Drivel – a response to Clay Shirky’s proclamation that we don’t need newspapers

I saw Craig Newmark’s pronouncement that there was a very important article about journalism just posted by Clay Shirky. Although the piece was well-written, it made me angry and still searching for solutions.

Part of my response had to do with attending the San Francisco Chronicle unit meeting of the California Media Workers on Saturday. It was an emotional meeting, where a very tough decision was voted up. The workers at the Chron gave up a lot, out of love for the paper. It was made all the more difficult because Hearst took advantage, pursuing ideological desire rather than real economic need. I saw pain, and a lot of very good people who had their bags packed.

So reading Shirky’s piece about how we don’t need newspapers just pissed me off. Yes, we get it. The business model is broke. Craig Newmark must still feel some guilt about the disastrous effect Craigslist has had on speeding the demise. Newmark was not a brilliant revolutionary, just a timely opportunist. He did what the newspapers should have done. Good for Craig. But I don’t want his guilt, I want his help. Don’t just suggest that there’s a need for good journalism, help us fund the new models.

We’re supposed to just feel good that we’re living through a revolution. I guess we could have written a blog for Europe during the bubonic plague saying, “Get over it. It’s happening, it will trim the herd, and there’ll be more stuff for those who are left. So what if you lose a few family members.” That would have made it okay.

And stop saying that we’re trying to preserve newspapers. We’re not. It’s always been about the journalism. And don’t insult us with the “You’ll miss us when we’re gone” line. Anyone who has seen the direct effect on communities of uncovering corruption, scandal and exploitation knows that there is little real replacement for good journalism. We get that it can be delivered in different ways. That’s not the problem. You need a critical mass, a large enough news organization, a way to pay writers and editors, if you’re going to provide good journalism to cities and communities.

We have been all talking about new experiments, and trying new things. The industry did not plan well for the internet. The collapse of unfettered, free-market capitalism, simultaneous to the onslaught of the “everything should be free” web, is a full-blown disaster. We can all look around and see that many of the answers are not coming in time. I know, too, that many people are hurting in this economy.

But let’s please get to the solutions. I would have been more impressed with an article that had new ideas – about new corporations, like L3C’s, about co-op efforts like the new Puerto Rico Daily Sun, or ESOP efforts like that being attempted in Portland, Maine. We understand that print is giving way to digital, but there’s much more to the story.

Let’s be clear about revenue. The current internet model is not fair to content creators. Under the current model, almost all the revenue on the web goes to Google and other aggregators. They feed off content, but don’t share back. That’s unacceptable. A solution may take time and not come soon enough, but one has to be found.

Those of us who have worked in and around news organizations all our lives, know that something truly valuable is being lost. At the Chron meeting, one member said, “Our work has value.” You wouldn’t know it from the behavior of so many, including owners like Hearst.

We need real innovation and real investment. We have known for some time that there is not a simple solution. Merely repeating that and stating that it will be good for us in the long run is pretty damned empty. We’ll be looking for financial investment back into working products, even some that will include print products. Europe and Japan show us that we shouldn’t just be tragically hip and write off real cash flows. But we should reinvest that money back into digital. The platform shift is real. We get it.

Because our work has value, we’ll need revenue from endowments, foundations, non-profits, L3C’s, LLC’s, trusts, consumers. We have to find a way to pay for this work or it will go away. And if you think that’s just the way it is, and we’ll get through it, and things will all work out, and people will blog for free, etc. – grow up. We’ll be wandering in the wilderness for some time.

Our culture and economy is in crisis. Greed became a sacrament in the early ’80s, and high finance replaced an economy that built things. Hard work was not only no longer rewarded, it was scorned. We’ve been made to pay billions into the failed enterprises of the high priests of this religion of unfettered capitalism. I have yet to see a room full of bankers come together and make the courageous choice I saw made yesterday. And now you’re telling me that we can afford to go a decade or longer without access to reputable, sourced, edited, credible information on how our businesses and government work?

What we do right now is vital. We need real talk of real solutions for the information industry, not brilliant drivel about how change will be good for us. We need good journalism. Yes, Shirky says that. But he insults us when he says we don’t need newspapers – suggesting that our mission has been only to pulp trees into newsprint. For a very long time newspapers have been the core of good journalism. That is endangered, and the absence of good journalism will be a full-blown crisis.

I’m angry for all the good journalists, some that haven’t even started their careers, who won’t be able to work. I’m troubled by a culture that will lose access to vital information. But let’s not be angry – let’s get to work.