As Count Floyd Would Say... "Scareeey, Kids"!

It IS scary out here in the world of wanna-be-a-journalist-again! Retired (bought out) Washington Post editor Leonard Downie told an interviewer in this blog that things in the newspaper biz are just as bad as they are in radio...

He called the newsprint business "a cartel more efficient than the oil cartel," said there are newspaper companies that will disappear, leaving several cities without papers "this year" and that the newspaper business is "on its knees", unclear "whether or not it's going to continue" (but the Post will, maybe because they have a non-journalism business, Kaplan, that's making money.)

This establishment press Brahmin also believes "anyone can be a journalist" and compares bloggers with the printers in the American colonies, "providing journalism that's sometimes reliable, sometimes not. They're the original bloggers." But he doesn't like the phrase "citizen journalism." He thinks it's just one of those "faddish phrases" from the web world.

We are a "hide-bound, tradition-oriented profession," says the guy whose newspaper is a big part of that tradition. "We have to open ourselves up to all the possibilities, or we're going to die."

Len is spending the next year on a mission from Columbia University "to see if there are any models that look promising" in terms of paying and supporting a future for journalism. "Right now I just don't know."

My good friend and millennial, Jen Richer, is a cockeyed optimist. She sees a world where journalism does have a future... that the cream of the current crop of bloggers and hanging-on traditional journalists will rise from the ashes and form the next wave of journalism. Jen may very well be right about this, because frankly, her brain is wired for this coming generation, and frankly because she's spent much more time thinking about it than I have!

To me, I worry that opening the world to let everyone be "citizen" journalists through blogging means that no one is really a journalist. I'll admit that I don't know what the "next" business model will look like, but I'm still convinced that with so many bloggers in the work force competing for the same opportunities, salaries for journalists are going to plummet - and so is the quality of journalism.

Here's hoping Len Downie does find a workable, profitable model for journalism out there - one that pays a livable wage!

Back On The First Amendment Soapbox

Every time I see a cop who thinks his badge gives him some sort of super powers, I get steam coming from my ears. The fact is that most cops don't like members of the media, presumably because they don't like being caught ignoring people's civil rights. I hate to sound like a law-enforcement hater, because I swear I'm not. But every time I see video (and I've seen plenty)of a police officer forcibly deciding what is and what is not appropriate for a photographer or cameraman to shoot, I think it gives police a bad name. This cameraman was detained in the back of a police car for more than an hour. If you or I did that, we'd be charged with kidnapping. The fact is, the cop had no right confiscating the guy's camera or detaining him to begin with! Watch and learn:



What cops need to realize and remember is simple. Members of the media and members of the public are one and the same. If you want to keep the media from shooting video of something and you have a legitimate reason, then shut down the street to everyone. I can't tell you how many times as a reporter I was blocked from being at a crime scene, even when members of the public were allowed to roam freely on the other side of the yellow police tape. That's not only unfair, it's also illegal. I was also thrown off the grounds of Dulles airport one time for asking members of the public questions. The officer decided I was harassing people. I most certainly was not - certainly not as much as the hare krishnas who used to walk up to complete strangers at the airport and solicit them for money. No one ever stopped them.

Again - treat members of the media like you treat members of the public (because we ARE members of the public), and you'll get no beef from me.

But that cop in Newark should lose his badge.