Open Left

Um, the WaPo & Co. are firing themselves

Readership, subscriptions, revenue, ad revenue, etc., are all going down, and not only because of the internet. A lot of it has to do with the growing sense that the establishment media (NOT the "traditional" media, unless one believes that dishonesty, mediocrity and mendacity are traditional values) is simply not doing its job as well as it used to. Not that it was ever superb, but it's gotten worse in recent years and readers have started to go elsewhere for their news. Or, more accurately, readers have started to go everywhere and anywhere for their news, and the WaPo has become a commodity, not a brand name any longer, read via links on aggregator sites like the Huff Post, TPM or Drudge, or blogs.

I think that this is where the mainstream news industry is headed, as an originator of news and other content that newer, aggregator sites will then either include or link to, and on a per-article basis, not a syndication basis. I.e. you'll only be as good as your individual writers and stories, and your brand name will count for much less than it used to. If readers like Krauthammer, then he'll be widely distributed. If they view him as the crackpot delittante nutjob that he is, then he'll be consigned to the shitcan of history, or published only on secondary RW outlets, on a subsidized basis, like Schlaffly and Thomas.

Same for writers like Froomkin, for whom I believe there will be a broad audience because he actually produces quality journalism, not pre-fab establishment or wingnut crap written to a preconceived narrative. He was rejected by the old news media model, but the old news media model is dying, so they probably did him a favor, short-term pain notwithstanding. He will thrive under the new model, which I expect to predominate within 5 years. It'll go from today's highly vertical model to a flatter model, and outlets like WaPo will either adapt, by effectively splitting into content creation and content distribution divisions, or die.

In any case, I'm not surprised that he was fired, just as MSNBC fired Donahue and Banfield and the LAT fired Scheer. what next, the NYT fires Bob Herbert, because he's "too divisive"? Won't matter in the long run, as the monolithic control that the establishment media has over who gets published is going away. It'll be the garage startup or band model, applied to the news business, enabled by technology. And Froomkin & Co. will thrive in it.

The liberal soul shall be made fat. He who waters shall be watered also himself. (Proverbs 11:25)

by: kovie @ Sun Jun 21, 2009 at 16:10:18 PM CDT