4 ms·

A. G. Sulzberger on the Battles Within and Against the New York Times

11 points by cocacola1 3y ago

djoldman 3y ago
Some interesting passages here: > Another dynamic inside our industry is that journalism, to some extent, has become an echo chamber.... if you are like many journalists of your generation and in my generation, you probably started at a local paper.... You were probably writing one story a day to three stories a week somewhere. Every day, you were out in the communities you were covering. You were being confronted with the full diversity of this country and of the human experience... > [Question:] Are you saying that’s changed? That reporters are just sitting in rooms in front of a screen? I don’t think that’s the case. > Of course it’s the case! It’s the least talked-about and most insidious result of the collapse of the business model that historically supported quality journalism. The work of reporting is expensive. As traditional media faded, and particularly local media faded, and as digital media filled that vacuum, we saw a full inversion of how reporters’ days were spent. The new model is you have to write three to five stories a day. And, if you have to write three to five stories a day, there is no time to get out into the world. You’re spending your time writing, you’re typing, typing, which means that you are drawing on your own experience and the experience of the people immediately around you. So, literally, many journalists in this country have gone from spending their days out in the field, surrounded by life, to spending their days in an office with people who are in the same profession, working for the same institution, living in the same city, graduating from the same type of university.
- dustincoates 3y ago
  > which means that you are drawing on your own experience and the experience of the people immediately around you... This would also explain why there seems to be so many more personal essays or first-person reactions [0] to news these days. I don't think it's necessarily the style that _readers_ prefer, but instead the style that writers feel most comfortable with. Not to say there's not a place for this kind of writing, but it seems to have been increasingly prevalent within the past decade. Interestingly, similar to the answer above, this doesn't seem to be the case for local news. I'll often check in on my hometown's newspaper to see what's going on, or "travel" through local small town news in other locales, and the writing is very much your classical Five W's type of reporting. (Other than the occasional "Andy Rooney"-type corner, but not within the news itself.) [0] Including in the NYT (personal essays), but also very prevalent in tech news, like The Verge.

11 points by cocacola1 3y ago

Some interesting passages here: > Another dynamic inside our industry is that journalism, to some extent, has become an echo chamber.... if you are like many journalists of your generation and in my generation, you probably started at a local paper.... You were probably writing one story a day to three stories a week somewhere. Every day, you were out in the communities you were covering. You were being confronted with the full diversity of this country and of the human experience... > [Question:] Are you saying that’s changed? That reporters are just sitting in rooms in front of a screen? I don’t think that’s the case. > Of course it’s the case! It’s the least talked-about and most insidious result of the collapse of the business model that historically supported quality journalism. The work of reporting is expensive. As traditional media faded, and particularly local media faded, and as digital media filled that vacuum, we saw a full inversion of how reporters’ days were spent. The new model is you have to write three to five stories a day. And, if you have to write three to five stories a day, there is no time to get out into the world. You’re spending your time writing, you’re typing, typing, which means that you are drawing on your own experience and the experience of the people immediately around you. So, literally, many journalists in this country have gone from spending their days out in the field, surrounded by life, to spending their days in an office with people who are in the same profession, working for the same institution, living in the same city, graduating from the same type of university.

dustincoates 3y ago
> which means that you are drawing on your own experience and the experience of the people immediately around you... This would also explain why there seems to be so many more personal essays or first-person reactions [0] to news these days. I don't think it's necessarily the style that _readers_ prefer, but instead the style that writers feel most comfortable with. Not to say there's not a place for this kind of writing, but it seems to have been increasingly prevalent within the past decade. Interestingly, similar to the answer above, this doesn't seem to be the case for local news. I'll often check in on my hometown's newspaper to see what's going on, or "travel" through local small town news in other locales, and the writing is very much your classical Five W's type of reporting. (Other than the occasional "Andy Rooney"-type corner, but not within the news itself.) [0] Including in the NYT (personal essays), but also very prevalent in tech news, like The Verge.