The Fire Ant Gazette - A Midland, Texas Blog | "Decline in Readership Challenges Newspapers"

Decline in Readership Challenges Newspapers
Category: MSM/Journalism/etc...
Posted Saturday, January 08, 2005 at 03:56 PM [GMT-6]

I somehow missed this when Bryan first posted it over at Arguing with Signposts a couple of days ago, but I'm glad I went back and stumbled across it. It's an essay by Evan Cornog in the Columbia Journalism Review entitled Let’s Blame the Readers: Is it possible to do great journalism if the public does not care?, and it's an insightful review of the issues facing today's newspapers. How do you get people to read your product, when they don't seem to be interested in reading to begin with?

Bryan's post singles out a disconnect between what journalists think people want to see in the newspaper and what readers actually want to see. It begs the question that even if they understand what readers want, should they give it to them? Here's Cornog's take:

Journalistic attempts to follow readers in their changing interests may lead down a rabbit-hole of ever-diminishing returns. As journalism tries its best to chase this increasingly recalcitrant public, it risks losing sight of its own fundamental purpose. And making news more entertaining is not the answer, either. The news can’t compete with the diversions put forth by Hollywood in films and on television. Jerry Bruckheimer is better at doing explosions than Andrew Heyward, and Angelina Jolie is more pleasing to gaze upon than Diane Sawyer. Even O.J. Simpson’s white Ford Bronco is no match for "The Fast and the Furious."

It seems to me that there's a shared responsibility among reporters, publishers and readers for being properly engaged in educating and being educated about current events and how they impact society and our lives. This is a wobbly three-legged stool, and the failure of any one group to do their "job" makes the whole thing unusable. Unfortunately, there's little agreement nowadays on what those "jobs" entail.

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