This is a newspaper obituary.
It’s the epitaph for a journalistic institution.
It’s the last rites for the Old York Times.
You think it’s premature?
You think I’m overstating the damage the Jayson Blair scandal has wrought on “the newspaper of record”?
You think I am just scoring cheap points against the Old Media?
Let me tell you what prominent members of the establishment press are saying about the fall of the house Sulzberger built.
Newspaper executives across the nation sounded off in a recent issue of Editor & Publisher, the trade journal of the Old Media, on the fallout of the resignations of Howell Raines as editor and Gerald Boyd as managing editor in the wake of revelations about fraud perpetrated by reporter Jayson Blair.
“These guys did not go down because of the Jayson Blair affair, they went down because the Jayson Blair affair exposed a lot of other things,” said Douglas C. Clifton, editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
He called the exit of the top two editors at the Times “unprecedented” and “a cataclysmic event” in the newspaper world.
Does he exaggerate?
“The whole incident has been a body-blow to the industry,” said Peter Bhatia, executive editor of the Oregonian in Portland and president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
Robert Rivard, editor of the San Antonio Express-News, said the resignations were “a tragedy for everyone in the newspaper world. This touches all of us – it is a crisis.”
Do they exaggerate?
William Winter, president and executive director of the American Press Institute, said, “In our journalistic house, the Times is the foundation,” he said. “And it has really been shaken.”
This is oh, so funny to some of us. The hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth is hysterical. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Never again will the New York Times be held up as the model of responsible journalism. Its day has passed.
There’s a general panic in the Old Media as it sees its power waning. There’s an equal sense of panic among the political elite who depended on the Old Media to keep it in power.
That’s why Al Gore is not running for president. Instead, he’s attempting to build a new media empire that will give his ideas – if you want to call them that – political currency.
He knows it’s a lost cause. He knows competition is destroying his political edge. He knows talk radio, cable news and the Internet have changed the dynamics – forever. So, instead of running a campaign, he’s trying to rebuild that foundation, which has been destroyed.
If you think I’m overstating the case, listen to the questions raised by Editor & Publisher: “Are newspaper standards going to pot? What is the root of the current epidemic of ethical errors? How much does competing with the new Internet and cable news outlets have to do with it? And what can be done to save face, change policies and root out possible wrongdoers?”
Yes, newspaper standards are going to pot. The root of the current epidemic of ethical errors is bad ethics. Competition with the Internet and cable news simply allows the problems to be seen more clearly.
Jayson Blair was hardly the first ethical lapse at the New York Times. But its impact is being felt far and wide because of the new competition – because people have choices now about where they get their news.
What can be done? Just what you’re doing. Seek out the alternatives – the responsible, independent and fearless alternatives.
And don’t look back.
Related story:
New York Times vs. WorldNetDaily: Farah says ‘time to choose sides, support your favorite newspaper’
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