Money > News?

The newspaper is dying. That fact is evident. We might assume that this recent trend is due to a growing interest in the World Wide Web. We would be correct in this assumption. Younger generations prefer to get their news from websites such as Google or Yahoo than run to the nearest vending machine for a newspaper. But I learned that this is not the only cause for the paper’s demise.

I was fortunate to attend a lecture from news journalist Bob Wigginton at my last Survey of Professional Media class. Wigginton explained recent trends that have contributed to the downfall of our oldest news source as well as how this unfortunate fate will effect the future of journalism as well as the world.

The internet is indeed a reason for a fall in newspaper sales, but it is not the only knife in journalism’s back. Another reason for a decline in newspaper journalism is actually the corporate take-over of news companies. Large corporations are not selling newspapers to keep the masses informed. The CEOs are only interested in one thing: $ $ $. If they don’t reach their sell goal, they panic, believing they have lost thousands of dollars. “They’re not really loosing money,” Wigginton explained, “They just aren’t making as much as they wanted to.”

When he said this, I couldn’t help thinking about my father’s former boss. My dad works as a carpenter. He is one of the best in St. Louis, and I'm not saying this because he is my father. His talent and attention to detail has been admired and acknowledged by employers and clients for many years. Unfortunately, one of his employers was more interested in making money than building good houses. When my dad took time out of his workday to make sure a door was hung perfectly or that the wood grain on the crown molding matched the chair rail, he would be scolded for "causing the company to loose money." My dad was "wasting time" and "time is money." His employer believed money was more important than quality. This philosophy caused his houses to have crooked doors and poor wiring. His construction company is currently struggling to stay in business.

This same situation is occurring in newspaper companies. In their quest to make more money, greedy executives are laying off thousands of journalists. This is causing a decrease in the quality of the hard news stories which further promotes the decrease in sales. So, don't always blame the internet for the fall of the newspaper; blame greed.