We’ve heard a lot in class about the sadness of seeing familiar print papers disappear. While I can certainly agree with that, I have the feeling there’s a confusion – conscious or not, of two arguments: an economic argument on one hand, and a democratic argument on the other. Those should not be mixed.
Why should we care about the doom of print papers? One footnote to start: I don’t believe in the announced doom of print journalism. At times of history, there have been crunches in certain industries, but it doesn’t mean those industries have necessarily disappeared. While there has been a crunch in the print industry – as there has been in many industries affected by the internet – calling for the doom of it is premature. So let’s call it a decline. This decline is usually presented as something bad. In fact, it is usually presented as something dramatic. And this assessment is usually presented as self-evident. Here, I’ll argue that we should challenge the foundations of such reasoning. So I’ll put it bluntly: why should we care about the decline of the print news industry?
Most arguments I’ve heard in class and elsewhere revolve around two considerations, one economic, and one which I would call a backward-looking argument. First, people in the industry are scared because of the loss of jobs. This is a legitimate concern. Losing one’s job can be dramatic. The second type of argument I hear goes along the lines of “this is sad, I grew up with this paper,” or “this is sad, this paper was the heart and soul of this city.” Again this is an understandable argument. So from the economic standpoint, and from the backward-looking standpoint, the decline in print journalism is a bad thing.
However, those arguments should have no bearing on a more fundamental question: which impact will the Internet have on democracy? If the Internet means the decline of print journalism, the real question, as far as democracy is concerned, is whether democratic needs will be better served with a new breed of journalism, an Internet-based one, than it was served when news was distributed in print. In other words, if a change in the means of production and in the means of distribution – driven by the Internet - leads to a better-informed citizenry, then the decline of print journalism will not at all be an issue – from the democratic standpoint. It could even be a blessing.
Clearly this is a big if, and one that must be tested. But what must be done first is to separate the economic argument and the backward-looking argument from the democratic one. Jobs do not equal democracy. It is not at all self-evident that the decline of print journalism will mean that democracy is short changed. When assessing that last issue, economy should not be taken into consideration.
PS: One counter argument will be that economic prosperity is a pre-requisite for democracy. I will already address that one by suggesting that evidence suggests otherwise. For example, in the 2008 Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, France, the fifth richest country in the world, ranks 35th, 14 places behind Jamaica (21st), and right behind Ghana and Mali (tied at 31st), all much poorer countries than France is.
I think print journalism is fundamentally democratizing, transportable and historic.
ReplyDeleteThree quick points: a homeless person with some reading ability can pick up a paper and read it on the subway. Second, a newspaper is something that transport collective memory in a way that captures events and moments. Third, the occupational institutions around print reporting suggest to me that it is by far the best means of securing a valid democracy- that is, occupational constraints and aspirations suggest that the journalists working in print are going to have the time for reflection, the space for articulation, and the mechanisms for editing along with a coherent value system that is unavailable so far online.