PressEthic

We are at a crossroads when it comes to the media. With all the turmoil at the New York Times, is it possible it will turn out to be a “newsletter for the elite and the elderly” in ten years?

Maybe, maybe not. But the Times isn’t the only paper dealing with issues.

The Philadelphia Inquirer is having some problems, too.

Daniel Rubin at Blinq muses:

You could put out the best newspaper in America with the people we've helped walk out the door over the 17 years I’ve been here. I think we once did.

His point?

The Inquirer knows it has to take the opportunity to re-invent itself. We must figure out who we are and what we do best, and do it now.

He quotes Will Bunch at Attytood, who discusses just where responsibility lies for these changes:

It’s human nature, I guess, but the first inclination is to blame somebody, and there’s plenty of blame to go around. Since the 2004 political season, it’s been fashionable to lash out at blogs and their supposed lack of journalistic standards, as if everything in the news business had been just hunky dory before these Internet pests came along. Of course, bloggers are just the latest of many reactions to a trend that’s played out over nearly 100 years, once newspapers ceased to be the nation’s only mass medium. […]

But assigning blame won’t save the Philadelphia Daily News. Besides, much of the blame really lies with us, as journalists. We have, for the most part, allowed our product to become humorless and dull. In an era when it seems most people truly will be famous for 15 minutes, newspapers have stubbornly avoided creating personalities...or having a personality, for that matter. In a pathologically obsessive quest for two false goddesses – named Objectivity and Balance – we have completely ceded the great American political debate to talk radio, cable TV and the Internet, where people have learned that politics is actually interesting and even fun when people are allowed to take sides.

Both blogs brought the question to the people, as did Susie Madrak at Suburban Guerilla : what should be done?

Readers complained about the papers’ personalities, or lack thereof. They ask the papers to admit their bias, even be proud of it, so that readers can make their own decisions. There were recommendations to both strengthen and eliminate the op-ed section. There were calls for open dialogue, and for optimism. Better local coverage, both within the city and throughout the suburbs, was a popular request. Some say make the Daily News the Philadelphia paper, and gear the Inquirer to the suburbs. Others say, consolidate the two and make a single, better paper.

The people have plenty of ideas. While Knight-Ridder, which owns both Philadelphia papers, does have to make profit a priority, idealistic journalistic goals should also be kept in mind (whether or not these two things are compatible is another debate).

But it seems that, along with their celebrity gossip, the people, at least those who post in the comment section of blogs, want some idealistic journalism.

Give the people what they want, and in a perfect world, journalistic ethics and jobs will both be protected.