Perhaps there is ‘A Way Out’

The endless flood of articles about the problems of the newspaper industry have become tiring to this blogger, and I assume to you too. When we tell you to click on the headline to go to a web site where you can read the full story you just might be saying “to hell with it.”

Hopefully we can start devoting more posts to old Tower Topics and less to news biz problems.

However, here’s a paragraph that hopefully will cause you to click on the headline. It is the conclusion of a scholarly article by Douglas McCollam in the Columbia Journalism Review titled “A Way Out?”:

“What newspapers really need, above all else, is ownership that values journalism and understands that the work of gathering, writing, and publishing the news is an inherently inefficient business that is in a period of profound transition. The private press baron of the past might have been a blowhard propagandist with the ethics of a wharf rat, but at least he loved the trade. Compared with the lineup of bloodless managers and mandarins currently squeezing the life out of journalism, Charles Foster Kane looks pretty damn good. So while there is no guarantee that the private ownership of today would recognize the value of journalism, it has already been established that Wall Street does not. Maybe it’s time we took our chances.”