Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-27gpq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-19T05:55:25.043Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - The crisis in news: Can you whistle a happy tune?

from PART I - THE CRISIS NARRATIVE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2016

Michael Schudson
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Jeffrey C. Alexander
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
Elizabeth Butler Breese
Affiliation:
Panorama Education
Marîa Luengo
Affiliation:
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Get access

Summary

The first newspaper in the world was published in Strasbourg in 1605 if we mean by “newspaper” a vehicle for organized newsgathering published on paper in a recurrent, periodical form for a general audience. The newspaper, then, first appeared in what historians of Europe call the “early modern” era. Like other elements of modernity that date to the 1600s and early 1700s – like the controlled experiment or the novel – it is a cultural form that we have come to take for granted as constitutive of our world. The controlled experiment remains a vital part of liberal societies to this day. Even the novel, whose death has been regularly announced for generations, continues its spirited life.

And newspapers? As I write this, the argument is strong that we are in the endgame of the distribution of news on paper. It was renewed in 2014 by the late David Carr, the savvy media reporter for The New York Times, who died unexpectedly in February, 2015. Carr noted that in the space of a week in August, 2014, three major US news companies – Gannett, Tribune Company, and E. W. Scripps – spun off their newspaper properties from their multi-media empires. The flurry of divestitures, he wrote, looked like “one of those movies about global warming where icebergs calve huge chunks into churning waters.” Carr reported discouraging numbers but even more alarming were his metaphors. He compared divesting the newspaper properties after a decade of stripping them of their resources to “trashing a house by burning all the furniture to stay warm and then inviting people in to see if they want to buy the joint.” And while he blamed “the natural order” of the marketplace, he found no solace or hope in the public. Many people, he wrote, “haven't cared or noticed as their hometown newspapers have reduced staffing, days of circulation, delivery and coverage.” Are they likely to notice or care “when those newspapers go away altogether? I'm not optimistic about that.”

Type
Chapter
Information
The Crisis of Journalism Reconsidered
Democratic Culture, Professional Codes, Digital Future
, pp. 98 - 116
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2016

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×