Matthew Yglesias and Atrios write about the newspaper industry — and what might have been.
They are getting closer to the truth I think. Newspapers publish news, comics, and ads in order to create what they sell. And what they sell is you. They sell you to advertisers (just as television does).
The product of newspapers is readers. The content on newspapers is the means to attract readers. Except for a sense of community involvement — real in some instances, perceived in most — a newspaper’s relationship with “journalism” is a marriage of convenience.
Oh, noz! Next you’ll tell me the Thrifty Nickle isn’t a community service organization!
That last line is so very true, and much more so for TV news. It isn’t so much the content that’s outmoded (which it is) but the sales model.
No model of a news organization (I don’t much care for the Phoenix paper) but a picture of where more of them should have gone is azcentral dot com.
Very hard to tell where the “paper” ends, a broadcast outlet merges in, and yet an outstanding guide to Phoenix events and happenings.