Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining...and the Black Lining that No One Ever Talks About

"Thousands of people who didn't read a newspaper now do so on their way to or from work. Hundreds of mainly young journalists have been employed to fill these newspapers." - pg. 27 SuperMedia by Charles Beckett

"How do you subsidize the cost of good journalism if the 'paid-fors/ go free? The free papers are full of gutless, bloodless editorial that is lacking in good, investigative journalism." - Paul Charman, London College of Journalism as quoted on pg. 28 of SuperMedia.

Well, I guess you can apply the thought that there's almost always a good and a bad angle to everything, especially to the current change taking place in journalism. The first quote above pertains to a possible good aspect: new people are picking up free newspapers and actually reading them. Then again, they could just be taking it because the papers are free and they feel the need to fulfill their small bit of kleptomania for the day, who knows. More people having repeatedly easier access to newspapers will make them more popular with mass populations. Make anything easier for someone and they'll be much more likely to start it and then continue it. This spells good for the newspaper companies, but potentially fatal for the standards of journalism itself.

So, the bad angle now quickly comes into play: people may be picking up more free papers, but the quality of journalism within the papers themselves is swiftly declining. The free papers have more advertisements and as is written above, "The free papers are full of gutless, bloodless editorial that is lacking in good, investigative journalism." After all, we're unlikely to get the razor's edge news if no one's going to actually pay the reporter for their time and various expenses. It's simple economics in the end: If something's going to be free, then you should put as little effort into actually producing it (other than that which you know will be required for people to pick it up in the first place).

Unfortunately, this all means that newsworthy stories in newspapers are becoming obsolete while more and more snoozeworthy are filling the void. Killing sprees and all kinds of corruption are still vastly more interesting overall than what celebrity did (or didn't do...OMG!). But it's probably easier to get a creeper to semi-legally stalk said celebrity than go to a court room and listen to testimony or chase down leads.

I'll just give a bit of personal advice: Don't believe everything the little box (our good friend TV) tells you.