As of late there has been a lot of press surrounding the potential closing of the Boston Globe. This has prompted me to ask: Who gets the news? What I suspect is that all the smart talented and already underpaid reporters of the Globe will be out of work. The more radio I listen to and the more TV I watch I notice that the sorce material of a lot of stories is generated from the reporters on the street working for the newspaper business. Additionally the internet is a repository for pieces that have been written in various papers from around the world. So maybe a better question is: What's going to happen to those hard hitting investigative reporters when there is no one there to pay them for their work? Maybe a new paradiqm will emerge that will be better over time but there will be a lot of talent that goes by the way side. Although I agree that change is inevitable and that the only constant is change, in this case we may suffer the slings and arrows along with the actual reporters that will be on the street. The Globe needs to stay but like many other institutions needs reform. When they do not report on a public rally in their own backyard but perfer to take a story out of the middle of Kentucky to suffice...that puts the credibility of the paper's independence in question. Backed up with the recent rally where by an associate editor stated that without the Globe the Herald would become more irrelavant than it already is. This type of posturing when the Herald is flush and being sold at a brisk pace not having to fight closure smacks of a lack of self awareness.
Solutions:
Reform the Globe to go back to the center or at least center/left
Stop allowing tenure to dictate power or leadership in the organization. Tenure is necessary in legacy type environments such as educational institutions but not in private business
Pay a higher rate for freelance and restructure those with fulltime positions.
In short I want the Globe to stay and I want it to get its credibility back.
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I enjoy the Boston Globe as well, and I do want it to stay. I feel as though being a journalist is becomes steadily unnecessary, and I fear for my potential career when I hear things like it. Like journalist will end up being private investigators and writing summaries on cheating husbands instead of writing stories on the mayor. I think that perhaps they'll looking into reform and stop seeing it as something bad and realize how much good it can dof or them. Hopefully.
ReplyDeleteThis is actually more in response to Shaniece's comment:
ReplyDeleteI don't see the journalism profession going anywhere anytime soon. While print newspapers are on the decline, most news is just switching to the web. There's still going to be plenty of journalists researching and writing articles.. they'll just end up on the web instead of in the paper.