The show is so dead-on because it was created by a man who knows. Former Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon has observed print media through the good times and the awful. Last week he testified before the Senate Commerce Committee that it's a fallacy to blame the Internet for print's demise. Newspapers, Simon said, are hastening their demise because management sacrificed the craft of journalism for the bottom line. Rather than strengthening their products, newspaper executives protected outrageous profit margins at the expense of quality.
Anyone listening carefully may have noted that I was bought out of my reporting position in 1995. That's fourteen years ago. That's well before the Internet ever began to seriously threaten any aspect of the industry. That's well before Craig's List and department-store consolidation gutted the ad base. Well before any of the current economic conditions applied.
When newspaper chains began cutting personnel and content, their industry was one of the most profitable yet discovered by Wall Street money. We know now—because bankruptcy has opened the books—that the Baltimore Sun was eliminating its afternoon edition and trimming nearly 100 editors and reporters in an era when the paper was achieving 37 percent profits. In the years before the Internet deluge, the men and women who might have made the Sun a more essential vehicle for news and commentary—something so strong that it might have charged for its product online—they were being ushered out the door so that Wall Street could command short-term profits in the extreme.
Simon's solution to the problem, however, seems as narrow-minded and protectionist as the corporate practices he resents. He says the way to save old-school style journalism is to move to a subscriber-paid online model and for news sources to "protect" their content from bloggers. Guess Simon doesn't realize that links to news sources actually direct traffic their way.
Wire creator David Simon testifies on the future of journalism [Reclaimthemedia, via Mediabistro]
(Photo:Triin Q)
@zandar: Obama is a leftist. Eric Holder should have tipped you off about that.
]]>I can't seem to wean myself off the Sunday paper though.
]]>We finished season five about a month ago. I am ready to rewatch. I miss the Wire.
]]>If the last quarter century has taught us anything - and admittedly, with too many of us, I doubt it has - it's that free-market capitalism, absent social imperatives and responsible regulatory oversight, can produce durable goods and services, glorious profits, and little of lasting social value. Airlines, manufacturing, banking, real estate -is there a sector of the American economy where laissez-faire theories have not burned the poor, the middle class and the consumer, while bloating the rich and mortgaging the very future of the industry, if not the country itself? I'm pressed to think of one.
David Simon for the win.
]]>Instead I get to read treasures like Cal Thomas. What a leftie!
By the way, Obama is not a leftist. Tim Geithner should have tipped you off about that.
]]>Some of the smaller papers will survive, since they're making profits. Assuming they aren't shut down by the bottom-line freaks. I understand pulling the plug on those bleeding money, but some of this is just crap.
Newsrooms are often understaffed and overworked, with a lot of chaos that only sometimes comes together properly. And the pay? The Onion said it best: [www.theonion.com]
]]>Six years ago, I was thisclose to switching my major from English to magazine journalism. Sure glad I didn't! I have a good job in applied linguistics / language testing now, and I read about magazine layoffs on my lunch break.
]]>I'm sorry but that bears no relationship to reality. The rise of Fox News certainly stimulated a change in the media - a change by becoming more conservative, which is why incompetent, inexperienced hacks like Bill Kristol and Ross Doubthat write editorials in the nation's most prominent newspapers, Glen Beck was on CNN for years, even liberal MSNBC runs conservative Joe Scarborough, the only guests on the sunday talk shows are conservatives and Republicans, and so on.
"Liberal media" is a myth; it's one of the myths that conservatives use to perpetuate their own victimhood. The truth is that newspapers are failing because, for three decades, they've responded to fictitious charges of "liberal bias" by giving conservative lies the same emphasis as factual truth.
That, for instance, is why the so-called "liberal media" will refer to waterboarding and sleep-deprivation techniques as torture only in quotes - because conservatives say it's not, now, and the so-called "liberal media" has to put that equal to the truth.
People aren't buying newspapers because you can't trust what they say - not because they're liberal, but because they're not liberal. The constant genuflecting to conservative concerns can't be made consistent with reporting factual reality.
]]>And yes, The Wire does definitely triumph over the Sopranos.
]]>@Sean Beattie: Great show in every way. I got started on it right before the fifth season. I watched the first 4 seasons in about a week (I was in college, lots of free time), and was ready when the fifth started. I still miss it a lot.
]]>There is also a 3rd class of paper that will survive, though as a niche operator. The free papers, like Westword here in Denver, that actually do investigative journalism (almost always scooping the local Denver Post by weeks...sometimes months!) and provide event listings for the metro area.
I despise companies that 'blame the internet' for their own failures. If brick and mortar stores provide good, knowledgeable service and a great customer experience, people will shop there.
If newspapers provided relevant and current content, people would subscribe. I love college hockey and there are 3 top notch (usually ranked in the top 20...and DU and CC are perennial national title contenders) programs in the area. The Denver post ignores the Air Force Academy completely, reports on Colorado College about 1/4 of the time and has a 1/8 page article on University of Denver (pulled from the wire services!) after each game. I get better information on local events, sports and other news from online sources...usually for free!
So, the internet has Better Content at a Lower Price. That's why it works.
]]>i dont know if anyone has mentioned it, but David SImon did an interview with bill moyer's a few weeks ago. it wwas really good.
How many companies in America, other than a couple in the electronics / computer industry, really invest in the long term anymore?
]]>You're only starting season 3? Get ready; it gets truly awesome (in the actual definition) starting with the third season. The fourth is my favorite, though.
]]>I am getting ready to start watching season 3 now...totally hooked.
]]>The internet didn't kill newspaper; television did. It's just taken this long for the subscribers born before TV was their main source of news to die off.
]]>Of course, certain consumer blogs seem to be heading that way too, pretty soon there wont be anyone left that can think for themselves.
]]>@bbagdan: Oh, and that computer is perfectly harmless? Do you power it with a human-run bike or something?
]]>If the unions are gone or going, replaced by non-union "lean management", how can you blame unions for the continued shutdown of newspapers?
Your own words suggest that the union/"lean management" model is irrelevant.
]]>Seasons 1 and 2 are great, but the show hit its stride with season 3, and just blew it out of the park with season 4.
]]>If it turns out that nobody wants to read stories written by journalists, then so be it ... but that's not the Internets fault, that's a design fault of the business model.
But I doubt it.
]]>The irony being that Simon appears to have based it largely on his experiences in the 90s. I love the Wire, and loved the 5th season (as a former J-school undergrad w/ friends in the news business, I really dig this stuff) - but it's worth it to search for some of the articles about Simon's supposed vendetta against the Sun, and how he incorporated that into season 5. Even if you don't completely believe his detractors, it adds an interesting layer to the season...
]]>uhh.. no this is not worlds worst subway car...
im a seasoned veteran of the NYC subway system. until you have wandered into a subway car that has a fresh steaming pile of feces on a seat in the far corner, a cart of stinking belongings rolling around in a shopping cart, a homeless man sleeping in the seats in other end of the subway car, and another homeless man sitting in the middle of the floor naked, then you can talk. (yes, this has happened to me)
]]>The printers unions are at least PART of the problem, probably a major part. While most of you are talking about the delivery of the news, I'm talking about the production of the newspaper.
I work in the printing industry, and I've spent a major part of my life in printing. What I've seen over the last 30-odd years is that most of the unionized printers are going or already gone. But the non-union printers have found ways to adapt and evolve with the new technologies.
Upgrading of equipment, employee training and cross-training, staying on top of new technologies and methods, reducing waste, keeping a sharp eye on material costs, these are all essential things today. "Lean" management is not just a catchword, it's the way to keep your doors open. You will never find lean management objectives written into a union contract because it's not in the union's interest to think that way.
*end of rant*
]]>Yes, yes you do. It's got plots that don't pay off in a single season, characters you see sporadically becoming key pieces of puzzles, and honest storytelling with no cop-out ending. David Chase is clown shoes.
]]>Printed newspapers are a ludicrously inefficient medium for delivering their value and as a result are terrible for the natural environment. Good riddance.
]]>@Coach
You hit the nail on the head - it's all supply and demand. The vast majority of the public does not demand teh slanted bias that is being provided.
I wouldn't mind if the media just admitted what most can clearly see and get on with it. But to expect that the aveage Joe will beleive their pleadings of "we have no bias" is laughable.
]]>@Sean Beattie: I need to Netflix The Wire, because The Soporanos BORED ME TO DEATH.
]]>I think his point - and rightfully so - is that the buyouts and layoffs have been going on since before the big bad internet. Which means that newspaper has been losing for a long time. Let's see, mid-90s...what had a stranglehold by then? Oh yeah, cable news.
The truth is that we're used to 24/7 news cycles and print is always old...
]]>Ironically enough, it was a criminally underwatched show when it was on-air. I know next to no on who's actually seen it, though anyone who has, has liked it.
]]>* And I am. Yes, I am!
(that's what mom says)
(wait - that didn't come out the way I meant...)
]]>I have said for years that the newspapers can be very successful but they chose not to be. The stories I get in mine are wire reprints and they are more than a day old. The local coverage is very limited and if you take away the obituaries/ local ads it would be almost nonexistent. In this day in age I know there is massive fraud and corruption but the papers won't expose any of it. To me the local papers are like stores trying to compete with Wal-mart on price. It is bound to fail because you will never match Wal-mart's prices so it is best to try and compete in a different area.
]]>Now if all the papers in that car simultaneous scattered all their pages throughout the car, were balled up and urinated on, I might agree with you, but they are relatively whole.
]]>The media has always been left-leaning, but the rising popularity of righty Fox News caused the rest of the media to jump the shark into pure liberal-mouthpiece mode. Fox responded by doing the same for the right, and now we have no useful media at all.
Everyone's just concerned about reporting on Obama and Biden's lunch, or Obama's walk around the neighborhood with Michelle.
]]>I read the Hartford Courant most of my life. In the 80's they cut back local coverage while still claiming to be your local paper. Through the 90's and into this decade locally produced news was replaced with wire articles and ads. Then about six or seven years ago they cut columnist and reporters just as the internet was taking hold.
Why should I pay for reprints of wire service stories when I can get them for free. I still subscribe to a local paper because they write stories and have well reasoned editorials that I can't get elsewhere.
]]>@pecan 3.14159265: Sadly, all five seasons of the show pretty much depict the exact same thing that you just described, just in different industries (police, unions, education, local government and journalism).
Easily one of the best shows ever made though.
]]>I finished season 5 on netflix about a month ago, and immediately went back and started it from the beginning again. its' infinitely re-watchable, not only because of the incredible writing and directing, but because the actors who play them- Bunk, Omar, Marlo, Slim Charles, Bodie, Snoop, Carcetti, Stringer, Wee-Bay, and so on- are just magnetic.
]]>Quality has reached an all time low with a media that is overwhelmingly in the bag for the current administration. Whatever happened to media being a watchdog over the powerful?
]]>Is anyone else wondering how other print media is doing? Popular mechanics and wired and several other publications are crammed full of ads, or even "special advertising sections" that i normal just rip out and toss before i even begin reading. I know playboy is in the shitter, but they only charge about 1$ per issue if you subscribe, but then thats about the same price as alot of the other big titles out there. How long before I lose my paper copy of wired to read on the crapper?
]]>I love and fully agree with the tag on this post.
The newspaper industry is a lot like McNulty when everyone looks at him *that* way: "What the f*** did I do?"
....The Wire was better than The Sopranos. There, I said it.
And.....begin the flame war.
]]>