Do newspapers suck?

A friend recently sent the following link to me:

http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2008/01/why-newspapers-suck-a-theory.html

The author, Ron Dreher, and his friend, magazine publisher Wick Allison, think newspapers are losing readers primarily because they are boring, and they are boring because of the writing style (i.e., The Associated Press style of newswriting).

"As I travel around the country, I always pick up the local newspaper, and inevitably the prose in the news sections is dry and bland," Dreher writes. "There's not much personality there. This is no accident. It's part of the mentality of American newspapering."

I don't share their opinion. I don't think straightforward AP style newswriting is boring at all. I don't read news stories to be thrilled by the writer's clever turn of phrase, and no lack of artful writing has ever deterred me from starting and finishing any particular news story.

In fact, when writers wax poetic in news stories, if only by their word choices, it can often make the news less than boring. It can make it downwright irritating, in the same way the squeal of fingernails on a blackboard can jar the brains of those hearing it.

Too many spelling errors, grammar errors, punctuation errors, syntax errors, as well as poor organization and incomplete information, have stopped me in my reading tracks far too often, and I think that kind of writing ought to cause readers to abandon a particular newspaper in droves.

But I don't think that's the phenomenon we're observing in the continuous decline of newspaper readership any more than I think it's a lack of brilliant prose that's turning off readers.

In fact, I'm not sure readers are turned off at all, yet newspaper readership is in decline nationwide, and everyone in the business is trying to figure out why.

I don't think Dreher's theory gives the industry a real answer or a real solution.

What say you?

FCC Claims Concerns with VNRs

The FCC anticipates increasing concerns in 2008 over video news releases which don't identify the source of the information. The issue involves public relations efforts that send video news releases to television stations packaging some promotion about a brand within the guidelines of a traditional news release.
The information should be truthful and informative or the television station isn't likely to air it and it looks to the viewer like a regular news story.

Okay, I'm admitting my PR bias and I'm going to explain why this isn't such a big deal.

"A new diabetes drug is on the market," the local anchor says..."Here's Jane Doe with some background." Then a video airs in which Jane talks about a new drug for diabetes, providing lots of information on its benefits to the sufferer. The information is truthful...the information is helpful to people who suffer from diabetes.
What the information isn't...is produced at that station. In fact, such information may be created by the diabetes drug manufacturer by a public relations team. The VNR promotes the new drug...so its sells...television stations get some good video on a newsworthy topic...the consumer gets helpful information.

Everybody's happy, right?
Not the FCC. The FCC believes the consumer should be told that the VNR is FROM the DRUG COMPANY. The argument behind this is the FCC believes the consumer should know when the information they're accessing is promotional to help the brand and its reputation, rather than the impartial views of a television journalist.

We've been reading news releases for decades from newspapers which don't identify that the news came from a source other than the newspaper. Print news releases are sent to newspapers daily with informative content of interest to the paper's readers.
CSU-Pueblo sends news releases out daily about all the important happenings at the university. The Chieftain staff and the local television and radio station staffs can't possibly come up here and cover all the news we've got to share on a daily basis. It's not LOGISTICLY POSSIBLE. CSU-Pueblo wouldn't get much coverage if the reporter had to personally come up here each time and write each individual story.
When you see a reporter's byline in a newspaper, it identifies the primary writer on the story. When you don't see a byline on a story, it could be because there were multiple authors...or it was a news release from the organization upon which the content is based.

It's standard protocol...it helps the media...as long as the content is accurate and truthful. What is the benefit of identifying every news release that comes into the paper or television station? If the media did, you might be surprised at how much of your news is generated by news releases. There's no other way to get newsworthy information to television and newspapers with such small journalist staffs.

The question is: Does this bother you as a consumer of news?

What can go wrong?

What can go wrong when pundits and pollsters report on elections? Everything, as the recent NH primary contest shows. There have been plenty of attempts to explain what went wrong, starting with questions about the poll's sampling frame. Just like the Dewey-Truman debacle nearly 60 years ago, phone polling biases may account for the bad data. In this case, pollsters may have failed to take into account the large number of "cell-phone only" respondents who skew younger and less conservative than those with land-line phones (see link below). Also, the early date of the primary meant that college students were still on break--perhaps out of state and less likely to vote.

But the real issue here for those of us who study the mass media is how did the news networks allow themselves to stumble once again in the rush to get it first? Yes, timeliness is a news value...but it should never trump accuracy. As former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw said, perhaps the news organizations ought to let the voters decide, then report on that!

If you're interested in the polling issues related to cell-phone users, check out this report from Pew Research Center for People and the Press.