Are newspapers dull and shallow because of poor reporting, cynical journalists, lack of direction from editors, or an obsession with profits at the cost of providing a good product to readers?
A recent poll done on more than 200 U.S. editors and publishers offered a wide range of opinion about why they believe newspapers are shallow, dull, cynical, inaccurate, etc. The poll done by Editor & Publisher magazine and a U.S. polling company attracted the following comments from those surveyed:
- “People like what we’re doing, but they want more perspective. We need to do more than say: ‘Here are the facts. Now you figure out what they mean’.”
- “A lot of the smaller newspapers are failing to produce the kinds of news reports their readers deserve … We’ve got to keep the quality of the local news reporting … I don’t think we can put the bottom line ahead of our commitment to quality.”
- Regarding recruiting better reporters and offering higher wages: “We have to attract smarter, brighter people.”
- “We tend to favor dullness. We need to tell more stories that engage people. I don’t think good storytelling means trivializing the news.”
- “All newspapers make too many mistakes. We need to be conscious of these failings and address them within our own newsrooms.”
- “It’s rare to read national stories that have attribution. We’re a small newspaper, but we don’t ever publish something that doesn’t have attribution.”
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Now that those who run papers have done their collective navel-gazing, they must confront the problems they have identified.
Will they improve their newspapers’ quality or allow bottom lines to dictate their direction?
