The Decline Of Newspapers and the ‘News’

Sadly, the decline of newspapers continues. I learned from an award-winning photographer who was just laid off that editors are asking reporters to use their i-Phone cameras to cover stories. A newspaper in New Jersey is now skipping proofreading editors, thus laying off proofreaders, and reporters filings are going straight to the web page, unchecked. A newspaper in Detroit recently posted a Page One photo of a well-known figure, only it was his brother! Experienced journalists are being laid off and replaced with inexperienced journalists to save money.

Filling the void of these lost professionals are slanderous and unethical bloggers with agendas and no journalistic education. Without being vetted, they are often employed as freelancers by newspapers and are used as reliable journalists. It is common that these bloggers never bother to contact the person they are writing about, have no proof, and have no second or third sources, a mandatory journalistic practice. They just make things up, and when it hits the internet, it goes on record as fact. Then Wikipedia judges accept all of it as fact even when it destroys innocent people. The New York Times recently reported on these practices and how widespread they are becoming.

Make no mistake, there are many journalists, bloggers, and editors who maintain a high standard of journalistic professionalism. Every day they fight against the tide of gossip and misinformation disguised as news. They diligently maintain the separation of facts and opinion to keep their profession honest. They cannot win, however, if their employers continue to lay them off and replace them with those less skilled and less ethical. When will newspaper managements, on the whole, stand up against this tide themselves and keep quality as their professional goal? When will they realize that they are destroying the product that they claim to be trying to save?

To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.

An unemployed journalist friend who I hold in highest regard told me recently that it is all over, they just haven’t closed the doors yet. Perhaps he is right. The only way I can tell this story is here on Facebook.
How ironic.

Hitting ‘post’ now, without an editor to proofread it…

Bill Day

Bill Day’s award-winning cartoons are syndicated in more than 900 newspapers worldwide four times a week through CagleCartoons.com syndication service. Day has won the Green Eyeshade Award from the Society of Professional Jounnalists six times–in 2010, 2009, 2006, 2005, 2001, and 2000. The recipient of two Robert F. Kennedy Awards–2010 and 1985. He has also been honored with the National Headliner Award, the John Fischetti Award, the National Cartoonists Society’s Reubin Award for Best Editorial Cartoons, The James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, and a host of many other awards.
Day began his career in 1980 with the Philadelphia Bulletin. He has also worked for the Detroit Free Press and the Memphis Commercial Appeal. In 2009 he was laid off at The Commercial Appeal. Bill won three national awards the following year.
Bill and his wife Susan have three teenage sons, Sam-20, Robby-17, and Zack-16.