Is Knight Ridder, the parent company of some of the best newspapers in the country, selling out?
There is a great deal of speculation about the upcoming sale of 32 Knight Ridder newspapers to McClatchy Newspapers, owner of the Sacramento Bee. Much of this speculation has to do with the demise of high quality journalism in this country. Under Knight Ridder, newspapers such as the San Jose Mercury News, Philadelphia Inquirer and the Miami Herald have thrived on news gathering that is committed to in-depth, hard-hitting and socially responsible journalism.
Ultimately, the sale of the Knight Ridder papers comes down to doing journalism as a business, not doing journalism as a public service. This is, after all, the American way. Fortunes rise and fall on our ability to capitalize on human enterprise and taking risks.
However, it doesn't seem right to simply blame the decline of journalism in this country entirely on the marketplace. Cole Campbell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch observes, "It's easier to blame capitalists and bosses than to reexamine the routines of thought we all use...as a journalist."
In other words, we look at the demise of the newspaper industry like the failure of some great civic experiment. Business like some of the newspapers owned by Knight Ridder found a niche in developing audiences that appreciate quality reporting over news as entertainment schlock.
Maybe our country will be far worse off without great newspapers such as Merc, Herald, or Inquirer as they presently exist under the control of Knight Ridder.
The problem with journalism today is what gets counted as journalism -- sensationalism or edification, titillation or education, entertainment or civic engagement.
In an age of vast amounts of cheaper and faster "news", doing journalism -- real Fourth Estate Watch-doggy journalism -- mean diminished returns and profits for stakeholders who suck dollars out of providing people with the information they need to make informed decisions in a democratic society.
The problem with journalism today seems to be one of scale. Newspapers came of age during a time of increasing literacy -- one that coincided with the rise of the middle class in this country. At that time, literacy meant the ability to read and write. Today, however, we live in an age where multiple literacies such as technological literacy, democratic literacy, cultural literacy have become essential.
Meeting the demands of readers today means acknowledging our society's increasing dependence on the Internet as a source of information. Consumers of information demand all the news all the time, but that doesn't necessarily mean that people are more informed.
Awash in a sea of information, studies show that the majority of Americans remain ignorant of basic constitutional rights. Can we blame big business or the media for our apathy and ignorance?
No. Americans must blame themselves for relying on others to keep them engaged and informed. We are a rash bunch and quick to blame someone else for our disengagement in the civics that come in participating in a democracy.
The skeptic sees the sale of Knight Ridder as yet another sign that the golden age of journalism is nearing an end. The optimist, however, sees the change in ownership as part of the larger trend toward media consolidation in this country. For the optimist, there is always hope. There is the hope, always a hope, that journalism will survive and thrive online to re-engage Americans in a great social experiment that comes with social responsibility and democratic civics.
Technology has both blessed and cursed the newspaper industry. Technological innovation has impinged on human behaviors since the beginning of time. Technology -- one which has helped grow the industry to produce newspapers faster and cheaper -- is now seen as contributing to the industry's undoing.