Goodbye, globe
The lamentable impact of closing foreign bureaus
Goodbye, globe
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
Today I merely want to recommend that you read this piece by Trudy Rubin, the Inquirer columnist who defies the lamentable downsizing of newspaper ambition by continuing to travel the world and opine on international news.
At a recent forum in Illinois - the topic was Pakistan - she was asked a classic question by a high school student: "If Pakistan is so dangerous, why don't we read anything about it?"
That tells you plenty. He could certainly get news about Pakistan by checking the New York Times and Washington Post websites (for now anyway, because who knows how long both papers will continue to fund bureaus there), but the broader point is that he's growing up at a time when financially beleaguered newspapers and magazines have generally retreated from posting reporters abroad.
For instance, the biggest paper in this kid's own state, the Chicago Tribune, has been closing foreign bureaus. The Baltimore Sun has closed four. The Boston Globe used to have five, now it has none. Newsday used to have six bureaus, now it has none. The Philadelphia Inquirer used to have six bureaus (including London, where I once worked), now it has none. By every measure, Americans are getting less news of the world than ever before; in one think-tank survey, the share of front-page newspaper articles devoted to foreign affairs dropped from 27 percent in 1987 to 14 percent in 2004.
Note that reference to 2004, which demonstrates that the slide did not begin with the current financial crisis. Many editors - in TV as well - have long concluded that Americans don't care much about foreign news (unless, naturally, the news affects Americans, or the folks abroad are talking about something that is happening in America), so therefore there is little urgency to provide it. The result, however, is that more Americans know increasingly less about the foreign cultures and developments that could ultimately shape their lives.
But the technological revolution has accelerated this trend. The Internet continues to suck the life out of newspapers, drawing away advertising and eyeballs, and one of the most perverse results is that, at a time when the globe seems smaller than ever, Americans will get less professional coverage than ever.
And I stress the word professional. There isn't the remotest possibility, in the foreseeable future, that the web will take up the slack and let loose a cadre of seasoned foreign correspondents. There are currently various schemes to pay slave wages to stringers, but that's no substitute for trained pros earning money commensurate with their skills and answering to rigorous pain-in-the-ass editors back home. With each incremental diminishing of the newspaper industry, there are fewer people who can report and explain the world with the nuanced complexity that the events and issues demand.
Rubin, in her column, writes: "We don't know who will provide the rich foreign coverage
we need at a time when the world is entering more dangerous times than most of us have ever known." Indeed. The critics of newspapers, on the right and left, who root for the death of the industry may discover, sooner rather than later, that there is a steep price to be paid for assuming that quality news comes free. Unless one's definition of quality is a foreign stringer who is so atwitter about his big story that he tweets about it via Twitter ("Whoa. Dude. Bathroom break").
Put simply, you get what you pay for.
Germany (for re-education). Glad to be back :)— Phrossty
Simple, if I want news about Italy, I read Italian papers on the inet. If I want news about Thailand I read the Thai papers, etc etc.- As for newspapers (not the same as journalism), I don't see horse-drawn carriages or kerosene lamps in use too much anymore, except as novelties. Although that could change if the economy doesn't recover.— Phrossty
- Phrossty, true that newspapers only represent one kind of journalism. But the rise of the Internet has made anyone and everyone with a keyboard a reporter. Especially on the ideologue sites, you'll find all kinds of information that isn't sourced, isn't written well and isn't accurate. So if we're switching over to Internet-only information, I worry a bit. I agree with Polman. Trained and experienced journalists need to be doing the reporting. We all have our biases, but in j-school the professors do try to beat that out of you. And the many reporters I've known really do their best to cover the whole story. It's part of the code of ethics of the profession.— NigeltheMastiff
- z— James TL
- Everyday at Philly.com i am inundated with news of the fall of newspapers in America. What is happening worldwide? Are papers bankrupt in England? Germany? Brazil? Japan? If so then I guess they are all doomed. If not, than why is it just American papers? Perhaps the owners are running them like AIG was ran. Reckless. The only differenece is that AIg knew the gov't had to bail them out so that we would not fall into a depression. Thats why they gave out bonuses instead of use the first bailout money to fix things.— Zues
- I read a story somewhere a while ago that said the reason newspapers were tanking is that they haven't changed their business model since their heyday more than 100 years ago. There was an admonition to them that if they didn't learn how to respond to the market, they would all go under. It may have been an Ad Age story, but I'm not sure.— NigeltheMastiff
- One of the problems is that internet users expect that everything on the internet is for free. In part, news sources have encouraged this trend by, in fact, providing content for free. It may be that the rush to embrace the internet has thus proven to be a mistake, and that it may be better to limit access to content to paying users. A micro-fee system, where one is charged small amounts (such as 15 cents) to view an article, may be the most viable approach. But for that to happen, enough news sources have to agree to move to that model. Another issue, though, is that in the past, newspapers were significant profit machines. If I have my numbers straight, they generated 10-15% profits for many years pre-internet (despite this, they often pay reporters peanuts). Other high profit industries with similar rates are the pharmaceutical sector, for example. Thus one of the big changes is that the business model needs to adapt to a lower profit structure. Many newspapers incurred large amounts of debt because they anticipated a continuation of the high profit ratios. This large debt is not sustainable in a tighter business model. News-sources such as newspapers are incredibly crucial for an informed, interactive democracy. Otherwise, we will all be stuck listening to Rush Limbaugh. While newspapers are important, though, the government has no business in the news. Thus, it really is up to the industry, and loyal newspaper supporters, to find an approach that works in the internet era.— Nalaka
- I hate to burst Polman's bubble here, but the standard, traditional newspaper media sure did a "bang-up" job covering the last two wars, and the inordinate corruption that plagued the governing of those wars. They were also "stellar" in predicting the financial crisis. They were "wonderful" at investigating and reporting all the illegal goings-on of the Bush White House. And they were particulary "adept" at "covering" international issues. In all seriousness, the only reason anyone knows anything about that stuff is because of what they read in a TEXTBOOK, or by following readily-available international news like the BBC and doing the research themselves. In no way have foreign correspondents done a fair job to the international community and/or how it relates to Americans with the exception of "60 minutes." Maybe the national media should adapt to what we want - news that isn't controlled by MEGA media groups, all of which are owned and governed by a handful of people. We need more quality independent newspapers in competition with each other. Not just NYTimes, Wall St. Journal, and Washington Post.— leftcoastbuckeye
Comment removed.- I'm still getting censored trying to repost my entry from "Rush the Hutt" blog...— Phrossty
- NigeltheMastiff, are you saying journalism is dying because newspapers are going out of business? Isn't it possible that journalism is alive and well and just taking a different form on the internet? It would be unfair of me to say that political bias is the ONLY reason why papers like the NY Times is going through financial distress. But I do believe it's playing a role... thoughts?— JGD84
- All the right wing nut-bags who LOVE to profer their "opinion" here(read:Talking points from their Dear Leader Rush) are completely impervious to empirical reality. The gigantic mess left behind by you and yours will take a LOOOOng time to clean up ,so just keep being wrong about just about everything and let the, not so ideological among us, move this country forward— No Ids
- JGD, I guess what I really meant to say is not that journalism is dying totally, but it is certainly being eroded by blogs and Internet sites full of non-professionals who write inaccurate copy filled with grammatical errors and computer shorthand like U R a pig. It's enough to make a writer's blood run cold. (OK, I know, I'm just an old poop who believes in proper English and complete thoughts organized in a logical manner.) The point is the line between reporting and editorializing is becoming blurred. I can't remember how many times I've made the point that there is a distinct difference between opinion and news reporting. While journalism is taking a new form, I'm not sure it's all good. I like the fact that we can all comment, but there's a certain shrillness to the conversation that erodes the debate.— NigeltheMastiff
- The filtering software on this blog is just atrocious. Polman should either require the Inquirer to host this with commercial quality blog software, or find another place to host his blog. I'm really tired of posting things that never show up even though they don't have any offensive language in them.— yoda
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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