A question that arose in a conversation with my wife this morning:
Can long-form investigative journalism, the kind portrayed in the movie Spotlight, the kind that takes months of work by a team of reporters, survive in a future where the daily print newspaper no longer exists? In a world where everyone gets their news from TV and/or on-line sources--even if those on-line sources are what used to be the print papers?
I don't think so. On-line journalism relies on getting eyeballs--beyond regular subscribers--onto the advertising it sells. That requires having a major eye-catching headline every day--click-bait, for want of a better term. It hasn't got the time or the money to have a half-dozen well-paid reporters working for weeks, let alone months, on a story that may never pan out or, even if it does, may not garner the national attention needed to generate new readers and therefore new revenue. Even more than the daily newspaper, the daily on-line news source depends on the immediate, the now.
Related to this is the decline in local reporting. Without print newspapers, where will the public get the information on county or small municipal government, including things like school boards? If my local county-based paper is any indication, it won't. It has trimmed its staff to the bone, even to firing all the "stringers" who used to cover the local municipal meetings. It has more people covering high school sports than school boards. I've had friends say that local, unpaid "reporters" will take up the slack--but who will make sure they are reporting accurately and fairly, without editors to check? Imagine a generation of young "Drudges" being in charge of what you know about your local represenatives.
I fear for the concept of an informed electorate in a decade or so.
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