A sign of the times

“The media is dead, and long live the new media, which is all of us.”

These words, spoken by Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., following the closure of his hometown Rocky Mountain News, may have been a bit premature. Nonetheless, they’re certainly telling of the current state of print journalism, which is, to put it metaphorically, a sinking ship.

Local dailies nationwide, including the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Baltimore Examiner and the San Francisco Chronicle have recently either closed shop or announced an imminent shutdown. Even newspapers with a national circulation are not immune.

The New York Times Company recently negotiated a 5 percent pay cut with its union in order to save an estimated $4.5 million. It also threatened its subsidiary, The Boston Globe, to cut salaries by 8 percent or face imminent closure, a deal to which employees begrudgingly agreed.

The sorry state of print journalism takes root in several causes, and the current recession certainly hasn’t helped as ad revenue is expected to fall 15 percent in May.

More significantly than the recession though, competition from Internet sources – particularly news aggregators such as Google News , Drudge Report and The Huffington Post – threatens the industry’s long-term viability by offering access to free online content. Visits to the top 50 Internet news sites increased 27 percent in 2008.

Taking note of an industry in crisis, Congress , as it has frequently done lately, decided to hold a hearing. At a Senate subcommittee meeting, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., queried industry representatives on how journalism-as-we-know-it might be saved.

Arianna Huffington, founder of the eponymous Huffington Post, suggested that print news’ decline was the result of its inability to adapt to the Internet, hailing the advent of a new, “professional-amateur” approach to journalism founded on ordinary citizens covering newsworthy events.

David Simon, a former contributor for the Baltimore Sun , was less optimistic. Lamenting the demise of traditional journalism as a profession, he criticized news aggregation as a “parasite (that) is slowly killing the host.”

He added, “High-end journalism is a profession. ... A neighbor with a garden hose is not a firefighter.” Both Simon and Huffington make legitimate points.

The notion of amateur journalists lacking formal training and the backing of a credible news organization who attempt to hold powerful politicians and corporations accountable is unquestionably absurd. That journalism remains a formal discipline is of the utmost importance.

This very fact, however, underscores the necessity that the industry adapt to changing economic circumstances in order to ensure its financial viability – even if that means charging consumers for online content.

Writing in The New York Times on Sunday, columnist Frank Rich noted that “if we lose the last major newsgathering operations still standing, there will be no news on Google News unless Google shells out to replace them. It won’t.”

Much has been made lately of industries too economically significant to fail. Likewise, an independent media is essential for the health of our democracy.