Recovering Journalist

What Will Happen When the Presses Go Silent?

The Boston Globe had a story the other day about the travails of the Portland Press Herald last week, and it included a plaintive and intriguing question from a reader of the struggling, up-for-sale Maine paper:

"Can you even be a major city without a daily paper?"

We're going to find out the answer to that before very long, I'm afraid. And it's worth thinking about what such a city will look like.

No, its skyscrapers will not fall, its roads will not collapse, its populace will not move out en masse. In fact, I'll bet that whatever city loses its daily paper–and it will only be the first of many–will continue to be a major city, pretty much unabated. Its media landscape will change, but in ways that may be much less radical than many people think.

Let's think about an imaginary major American city–let's call it Whoville–and its media ecosystem. Today, Whoville has a major daily paper (the Whoville Bugle), four network TV stations with news departments, an AP bureau, an alt-weekly, a weekly business tabloid, a couple of weekly (or daily) ethnic papers, college papers, perhaps an all-news radio station (and at least a couple stations that still do some local news), a ring of suburban papers–mostly weekly, maybe a couple daily–and perhaps a handful of in-city neighborhood weeklies.

Sounds like a lot, doesn't it? And that's just the traditional media. Whoville and it's 'burbs also are bristling with new media. There are enough local online news and bloggers that Examiner.com and Outside.In each can devote a dedicated channel to aggregating Web content about the city.  Craigslist, Yelp, Citysearch and others have beachheads in the market, offering classifieds and reviews that are especially appealing to younger readers. Local outposts of MerchantCircle, Kudzu and other online business directories and Yellow Pages wannabes target local businesses.  Local restaurant bloggers, sports bloggers and other specialists write about things they're interested in.

Whoville's suburbs have blogs, as well, and perhaps a startup hyperlocal site or two. Just about every neighborhood has some sort of listserv or Yahoo group on which neighbors exchange information. And there are any number of specialty newsletters, Web sites, mailing lists and publications that serve specific audiences, ranging from PTAs to moms to local hobbyist groups. Oh, and of course, there's WhovilleBugle.com, the daily paper's Web site, not to mention Web sites for the local TV and radio stations and the community papers.

All of these media outlets are competing for readers in Whoville and its suburbs; most of them are competing for advertisers, too. In other words, there's a lot more to the Whoville media ecosystem than just the Bugle. And I'm sure I left a few things out (every market has a slightly different collection of local media, of course).

It is precisely this growth in competition that has helped to make the Bugle's financial position so tenuous. Surrounded by competitors that are picking off different audiences and advertisers and offering services for free that used to be revenue streams for the paper, the Bugle has been eaten to death by fleas (some of them very large fleas!). Once king of the jungle, it's now just another player–albeit probably the dominant player–in the Whoville media.

Now let's take the Bugle out of that mix.

The Bugle's owner, frustrated by mounting losses and departing advertisers and readers, decides to close up shop. It shuts the paper, idles the presses, and lays off the staff. (There are somewhat less dire versions of this situation, in which the print product disappears but the Web site remains, or the print product is drastically reduced to perhaps publishing a couple times a week, but for the sake of argument, let's go with the full doomsday scenario.)

What happens? The entire Whoville media ecosystem, described above, steps up to pick off the Bugle's advertisers and readers. Some of the media outlets that were dependent on the Bugle's coverage to inspire their content (e.g. TV news and bloggers) will learn to look to other sources. But there's already a lot of diverse media in Whoville serving local news and information needs, and they'll fill a lot of the gap left by the death of the paper.

Inevitably, a group of ex-Bugle staffers, backed by local money, will start the Whoville Daily Trumpet, a fraction the size of the Bugle but much more focused on the city itself. The new paper will leave suburban coverage to the community papers and be smart enough to not even mess with national and international news that's available in a zillion places. With more focus, a much leaner business plan, hungry ad sales reps and hired printing and distribution, the Daily Trumpet can be competitive in ways the bloated, overextended Bugle could not be. 

Many other ex-staffers will join the other existing media, beefing up their staffs and smarts. Still others will start blogs or small print or online media outlets to cover specific topics. Not all of these will make it, but many of them will, covering things the Bugle used to cover and serving various parts of the old Bugle audience.

Indeed, a year or two after the Bugle's demise left a seemingly enormous hole in the city's media landscape, that hole will essentially be gone. It will be filled by thriving, competitive media that already exist and a few new outlets that spring up in the wake of the newspaper's closing.  The Whoville media ecosystem will prove to be self-repairing, much more quickly than a lot of people would expect. The residents of Whoville and its suburbs will get their news and information from these old and new replacements, and advertisers will use those substitutes for the Bugle to reach those customers. 

The Whoville Bugle will be a nostalgic memory of local life–much like the Whoville Herald, the afternoon paper that closed without much of a fuss a generation ago, or the Whoville Daily News, which quietly bit the dust a generation before that. The Bugle will be toasted at annual reunions of the staff and remembered in dusty collections at the library and historical society, but it will soon be seen as yesteryears' news.

Let's get back to the original question. Will Whoville still be a major city? Sure. It will still have its various corporate headquarters, beautiful architecture and parks, international airport, pro sports teams, a thriving music scene, opera, theater, good restaurants, great neighborhoods and all of the other things that make up a major city. It just won't have its old-fashioned daily newspaper. And sorry, but the Bugle really won't be missed.

The AP–Of All Places–As News Industry Think-Tank

The Associated Press has taken a beating in some quarters lately over perceptions–largely misguided, I believe–that it's somehow competing online with its newspaper members. Not only does this reflect a misunderstanding of what the AP does, but a lot of critics seem to forget that AP is owned by those newspapers. It's a rare example of newspaper ownership of a savvy online player, and a lot better than the alternative (think: Reuters. Or Google).

One of the reasons AP is taking some heat, frankly, is because it's been especially aggressive and innovative in embracing online media. Once incredibly stodgy, AP's leadership now seems to be on the cutting edge in how it thinks about the new world of journalism. Go figure.

The latest example of that is a fascinating research report released recently by the news cooperative. "A New Model For News" slipped out of the AP a few weeks ago and has gotten very little coverage in the industry media. But it reads like a roadmap for what news organizations–and especially newspapers–should be doing to regain their competitiveness, especially with young readers.

The report is based on detailed interviews and observations of young (20ish) readers in the U.S., Britain and India. Not surprisingly, it finds out that kids don't read newspapers. No news there. But it does show that they've got real interest in news, and are going to all sorts of sources besides print to find out what's going on in the world.

You should read it, but I'll briefly summarize: TV, Web sites and mobile alerts are popular with these young news consumers. So is news exchanged via social interactions (online and offline) with friends and co-workers. (Missing from the report: Any mention of Twitter, but that may have to do with the timing of the basic user research, which is now a year old.) Interestingly, the young folks interviewed generally don't think they're getting enough depth in their news. The detailed profiles of the various young readers and their news habits are quite interesting–and depressing if you're still betting on print.

Yeah, yeah, you're saying, we know all that: Kids use non-traditional news sources. But what are traditional news sources, i.e. newspapers, doing about it? Not a hell of a lot. Most papers haven't done anything particularly interesting with video (traditional TV, not just Web video), mobile alerts, and even now-"standard" technologies such as e-mail newsletters and RSS. The industry's track record on these vital new media is pretty sad.

Not to worry: The AP report provides a veritable cookbook of "new models" for news production and distribution, including:

• Tying news delivery more closely to e-mail. Clearly, these readers want news pushed to them. They want to be alerted when something is going on that they care about (gee, maybe they're news junkies more than anyone thought!), and they want to be able to do it simultaneous with checking their e-mail or text messages. That means more e-mail products, mobile products and distribution via things like instant-messaging and RSS. 
• Deliver to the technologies these readers live with. Seems obvious, but again, most newspapers and their Web sites are still publishing most of their news the old-fashioned way. These readers are looking at TV, their phones and PDAs, and other, fresher technologies (a surprising number don't even have computers at home, or dismiss the computer as more of a time-waster). That's where news needs to be delivered, with the same quality and aggressiveness of traditional outlets. (AP is walking the walk on this: its AP Mobile News app is one of the snazzier of the new iPhone apps.)
• Don't underestimate television. It's still a significant form of news delivery for these consumers. That suggests that newspapers need to find ways to move their brands onto TV (what is this, 1955?). Online video is one thing–and it's important–but regular TV is still a very viable medium for these young readers, and newspapers don't reach them there.
• Give them depth. This one's a bit of a surprise, but clearly these young readers are frustrated by the thinness of the news they're getting. I think the secret here is to give them the option to go deeper if they like–but not to force depth on them. Products need to offer both brief and long versions that readers can choose.
• News consumption is increasingly multitasked. Translation: These news consumers want information they can access while they're doing something else, rather than having to focus intently on, say, a newspaper or Web site. They're getting news while driving or while doing other things. That means news organizations need to find ways to wedge news products into those activities rather than demanding 100 percent attention (young readers will give that if they're more interested in depth).
• A bit of news fatigue is setting in. With news coming from many directions, these consumers feel overloaded by information. This argues for well-crafted, focused news reports that maximize the amount of information delivered and provides it in high quality. Sounds like a business newspapers should know well–but it needs to happen in different media than paper.
• News is social currency. It's "cool" for these kids to know something their friends don't, and then to be the source of that news, or for them to be conversant with their friends and colleagues about what's going on in the world. That's an old-fashioned value that appears to still hold with these new audiences.

Again, you should read the entire report and think about how your company's products should be refocused to better serve this audience–which, of course, is the audience of the future. You've got to build products that that audience wants, not just creating (print) products for an audience that is aging rapidly (you know how that story ends). Clearly, from the AP report, even news Web sites aren't enough–and may remind them too much of their print forebears. There's a real need for a fresh approach to news, from reporting to delivery.

Moreover, one of the most interesting and profound statements in the report is from an AP editor who says, "We're reporting what is happening, not what has happened."

That's a critical change in tense, and very smart thinking. Everyone in the newspaper and new media business should be pondering it. Yes, it's a rougher first draft of history than many journalists are used to, or even comfortable with. But in an era of technology-driven news immediacy, it's exactly the right philosophy to have, especially to reach the younger news consumers who are subjects of the AP research report. 

All of AP's member newspapers should be closely examining "A New Model for News" and looking for ways to build products that exploit its findings. After all, they paid for the research. They might as well take advantage of it.

Update: On a related note, the Newspaper Association of America just released a good primer about what newspapers should be doing with mobile publishing. It all seems so obvious–but there really aren't a lot of good newspaper mobile efforts out there, much less any that really try to make money on it. It's a big opportunity.

Conventional Wisdom–Not

Forbes is reporting that there will be 15,000 journalists at each of the two upcoming political conventions.

Unbelievable.

At a time when news budgets are being slashed because of declining revenue, how can a news organization possibly justify sending a raft of people to the conventions? (I suspect the numbers for the Olympics are about the same–and just as ridiculous.)

The Los Angeles Times is sending 15 people to the conventions, Forbes says. And that doesn't count journalists from other Tribune Co. papers that will be helping out. With what? Apparently, the Zellot cost-cutters missed this line item. Too bad. USA Today plans to send 34 reporters to each convention; Dow Jones is sending 23 to each. The New York Times and Washington Post aren't disclosing their numbers, but you can believe they're similarly inflated. The good news is that many organizations say they're cutting back from previous convention coverage–but it's still too much.

Sorry, but in most cases, there's really no (legitimate) excuse for a single news organization to send a large number of journalists to the convention. What stories are they going to get that the AP can't supply? Hijinks of the local delegates? Inside info about what the candidates hope to do for the economy back home? Local color on Denver and St. Paul? It's really hard to understand the need for this kind of bulk coverage. 

Unless, of course, you understand that the conventions serve as gala social events for journalists, as well. It isn't just political reporters that go to big events like these–it's editors, managing editors and publishers who get to go along for the expense-account ride (in expensive style, no doubt). That puffs up those numbers of attendees. It's a way of showing the flag, of hanging out with old friends, of doing some (much-needed these days) job networking. 

But that doesn't make it right. In fact, at a time when coverage is being cut back and newspapers and broadcasters really need to be devoting more resources to local coverage and other journalism that readers truly care about, this sort of boondoggle is just plain wrong.

It's the Election, Stupid

It's a Presidential election year, about as big a news story as there can be. But too many news organizations still are not doing a particularly good or innovative job of providing online campaign coverage that goes beyond standard print and broadcast coverage.

In fact, it's taken a startup site to redefine campaign coverage in this Presidential cycle. The remarkable FiveThirtyEight.com is providing daily updates of polling activity and adding sophisticated statistical analysis tools to attempt to track and project what's happening among the ever-changing electorate. 

While most mainstream media sites still are fixated on essentially meaningless national voter polls, FiveThirtyEight.com is breaking down state-by-state results to attempt to chart what's going to happen in the all-important Electoral College (the site's name refers to the number of Electoral College votes up for grabs). Poll data is weighted based on the pollster's past record of accuracy. And the site applies tools like regression analysis and similarity scores to attempt to bring clarity to the mass of numbers it collects.

Who's behind FiveThirtyEight.com? A guy named Nate Silver, whose day job is being one of the principals behind legendary baseball statistics site Baseball Prospectus. (Silver invented the legendary baseball player stat-projection tool, PECOTA.) 

Silver is bringing the kinds of advanced statistical analysis beloved of baseball stats geeks to the Presidential political arena, and the results are revelatory. He's even run 10,000 simulations of the election to try to project the outcome, and constantly changes his probability estimates of various outcomes based on the latest polling data. At the moment Silver thinks there's 17.44 percent chance of an Obama landslide, a 3.98 percent chance that McCain could lost Ohio yet win the election, and a 0.82 percent chance of an electoral college tie.

This is heady stuff, especially when most major news organizations' idea of sophisticated political coverage is pretty much limited to reporter blogs. How 2004. Last time around, ABC News' The Note defined campaign coverage, and naturally, this year every major news site has its own version–The Fix, The Trail, The Caucus, Top of the Ticket, etc. Some are very good. But they're still pretty conventional, especially compared to what Silver is doing. Also conventional: Politico, the much-ballyhooed politics Web site/newspaper startup from two former Washington Post reporters that's quickly become a player on the national political news scene. Politico is solid, but it's still basically a newspaper on a screen (disclosure: I did some pre-launch consulting for Politico).

FiveThirtyEight.com is not the only one exploring new ways of looking at the election, but other good examples are few and far between. A handful of others worth checking out:

• PolitiFact.com, by the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly, whose Truth-o-Meter is a clever way to look at the back and forth between candidates. PolitiFact is very witty and engaging about holding the candidates accountable for their statements, matched only by The Daily Show's masterful use of videos that catch contradictory statements. WashingtonPost.com has tried something sort of similar with its FactChecker blog, but FactChecker is inexplicably taking the summer off. Don't they know there's an election coming up? 
• Patchwork Nation, by the Christian Science Monitor, an interesting way to try to move election coverage away from the Washington vortex. Based on 11 blogs from around the country, each attempting to represent a different voter interest group (Evangelical Epicenters, Immigration Nation, Tractor Country, and so on) Patchwork Nation offers a different perspective, for sure. But I wish it had gone farther, and opened itself up to blogs and contributions from readers all over the nation, not just those 11 blogs. That would really bring the patchwork map that dominates the site to life. Still, it's a good effort to get beyond the usual political coverage.
• Poligraph, by HealthCentral.com (another former client) does an interesting job of tracking the candidates' positions on health care issues, with an easy to understand interactive graphic tool. You can even compare your own stance on various health issues with the candidates'. Extra credit: HealthCentral has made it easy for other sites to add Poligraph to their political coverage as an embeddable widget. One only wishes there were similar tools for other major issues.
• YouDecide, by San Francisco public TV station KQED, offers a smart interactive tool that both assesses your stands on various issues and challenges your position through a series of questions. It's an interesting approach, and it's also available for embedding in other sites (hint: embeddable widgets like this are a great way to spread a brand name).

Other than that, the list of interesting political coverage efforts is pretty thin. There are various versions of electoral maps and campaign finance databases, and WashingtonPost.com–which should be the ESPN.com of politics but never seems to rise to that level–does have a candidate-travel tracking tool, an issues-tracker (powered by DayLife) that seems out of date (it still lists Mike Gravel as a candidate), and a few rudimentary Facebook widgets (again, spreading the brand).

But FiveThirtyEight right now is way ahead in the election coverage innovation polls. But there could be a dark horse: Google did an incredible map-based site to cover last year's Australian election. If the company has something similar coming for the U.S. Presidential race (with less than three months to go, it had better get cracking), all those campaign blogs are going to look even more like also-rans.

Drudging Local

As if big-city newspapers didn't have enough trouble, now they're about to get some interesting competition right in their own backyards.

Arianna Huffington has revealed that she's going to start a series of local versions of Huffington Post, beginning in Chicago. The model will apparently be a single local editor who, as in the national version, will assemble the best stories from a variety of local sources–and presumably create or contract for some original content as well.

HuffPost isn't the only one trying this model, which basically is a local riff on the Drudge Report. Very quietly, billionaire Phil Anschutz' Clarity Media, aka Examiner.com, has been hiring local editors–called, cleverly, "Examiners"–rolling out a series of local news aggregation sites in cities around the country. (Disclosure: I worked last year on Clarity's strategy for this.) 

It's an obvious idea, and a little shocking it hasn't been tried before–especially by an existing local media organization. The key is to be agnostic about sources, tap into all of various local online news operations–newspapers, TV, radio, alternative weeklies, community papers, hyperlocal sites, local blogs, whatever–and create an ongoing best-of local news/information, regardless of where it comes from. 

Topix and Outside.In, it might be argued, already do this in a crude, automated sort of way. But what HuffPost and Examiner are aiming for is an edited approach, sorting through all the local news available in a given city and highlighting the best stuff. And guess what: Taken altogether, there are a lot of unbundled sources of local news. The comprehensiveness of an aggregated local news site would dwarf any single traditional local news outlet.

No doubt, the traditionally competitive, "not-invented-here" approach to content will keep existing media entities from experimenting with this sort of local news aggregation. Too bad. Because a one-stop-shop for local news and info is going to be one hell of a competitor for the existing local media. 

I Read the News Today—Oh Boy

There was a flurry of media industry press this week over a Zogby poll that showed that 67 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism. Yeah, yeah, yeah, old news—as a great editor said to me 30 years ago, "They hate us."

But the Zogby poll had something much more newsworthy in it that was largely overlooked: A finding that 48 percent of Americans view the Internet as their primary source of news and information.

Let me let that sink in: 48 percent. Almost half. Internet. Primary source. News and information.

Wow.

The number is up from 40 percent just a year ago, and it dwarfs the other, more traditional contenders: TV is seen as the primary source by 29 percent of the respondents, radio by 11 percent (driving around in their cars, no doubt), and newspapers by, gulp, 10 percent.

That's right, just 10 percent of Americans now list newspapers as a primary news source. (Natch, it's worse among young consumers, with 55 percent of those 18 to 29 viewing the Internet as their primary news and information source and just 7 percent citing newspapers.)

So can we all agree now that Internet news is, indeed, the future? More important, newspaper companies, do you think you can finally start really taking it seriously and doing something about it?

(Tip of the hat to Greg Sterling for highlighting these stats, and in turn crediting TechCrunch, a link worth following just for the graphic.)

Foul Ball

You can't exactly call the people who run Major League Baseball geniuses (believe me, I used to cover the baseball business). Just look at the steroids fiasco for recent proof. But in case you need more, it's at hand: Following in the idiotic tradition of the NFL and other sports leagues in attempting to control coverage, Bud Selig & Co. have imposed draconian rules on how the media can cover baseball games this season. If you're the "bearer" an MLB press pass, here are some of the new, unbearable rules:

• "While a Game is in progress, Bearer shall not transmit or aid in transmitting any Game Information on a play-by-play or pitch-by-pitch basis, more frequently than once every half-inning of play (except to report on the occasional and significant historic event)." (Sorry, bloggers, tough luck.)

• "While a Game is in progress, Bearer shall not transmit, display, or aid in transmitting or displaying, any video, audio, pictures, photographs or other non-text based accounts or descriptions of Games ... that Bearer obtains at that Game in any media." (I guess that rules out any reporting by iPhone!)

• "Any video captured within the ballpark, excluding press conferences, must be limited to 120 seconds and cannot be carried live; ... no live or taped audio or video is permitted to be captured from 45 minutes prior to a scheduled game time until that game has concluded; ... a manager’s pre-game interview or other content may not be transmitted live and audio or video transmissions of such content may be no longer than 120 seconds; ... a manager’s post-game press conference may be captured via video or audio and transmitted (and archived for up to 72 hours) on Bearer’s website but may not be carried live; and ... interviews with players, Club personnel and baseball officials may be transmitted by Bearer on its website for a maximum of 72 hours, may not be longer than 120 seconds in duration and may not include any Game highlights." (All you local TV stations and Web sites who want to do video? Forget about it.)

• Oh, and these credentialed media sites aren't allowed to display more than seven photos of each game, or display those seven pix for more than 72 hours after a game (unless linked to a story)—and "such still pictures or photographs of any Game cannot be used as part of a photo gallery, the definition of which shall be determined by the Baseball Office of the Commissioner in its sole discretion."

This is unbelievable—but maybe not, given that it comes from the people who gave us the designated hitter, juiced ball and juiced players. I guess I understand why lawyers for sports leagues want to control their product and trademarks—and protect the lucrative league-owned Web sites that increasingly are muscling in on traditional media coverage.

But at some point, MLB's leaders and other sports executives are taking their eye off the ball. Sports in this country exists primarily because the media covers it. If coverage suffers, so do ratings and attendance (just ask the NHL, the WNBA and Major League Soccer). Baseball should be welcoming the press with open arms—that's how the sport is marketed to the paying public.

Online News Squared reports that media companies apparently are pushing back on these ridiculous restrictions; as I've said before, the ultimate solution is for the media to simply announce that it won't cover the games until the restrictions are lifted. Boycott the games, editors. Simple as that. The resulting public outcry, and impact on attendance, should knock some sense into the Lords of Baseball.

Major League Baseball is uniquely protected by an exemption from federal antitrust laws. Maybe it's time that MLB understands that the press has its own unique protections in the First Amendment.

Lou Grant

My cable system carries an obscure channel, American Life TV, that specializes in reruns of equally obscure TV shows from the '60s and '70s. Golden oldies like "Time Tunnel," "The Green Hornet" and "Combat." Great stuff.

Lately AMTV has been showing "Lou Grant," the great late-'70s series about a crusty city editor, transplanted from Mary Tyler Moore's TV newsroom—one of TV's more unusual spin-offs. For those of us of a certain age, "Lou Grant" is practically a documentary of the newspaper business in the late '70s—noble causes, great principles, ink-stained wretches—and some really bad hair.

Of course, it was all prettied up for television, and some elements weren't realistic—the city editor and publisher were oddly close, and stories always wrapped up tidily to fill the hour. But as a portrayal of a working newsroom, it was pretty good—exactly the kind of place any journalist would want to work.

In fact, I stopped watching "Lou Grant" a couple of years into its five-year run because I was finding it depressing—the real news organizations I was working for weren't nearly as alluring as the fictional Los Angeles Tribune and its people. I wanted to work for Lou and Mrs. Pynchon, and hang out with Rossi, Billie, Donovan and Animal at the bar next to the newspaper. It all seemed so much fun. Reality couldn't compare.

So it's been fascinating to be reintroduced to the series after 25-plus years away. It never really did well in syndication, and strangely, it's not available on DVD (though Amazon has individual episodes available for download). It holds up surprisingly well, given allowances for some of its dated references (and how strange is it to see journalism shows or movies that predate cell phones or the Internet? It's like a completely different business!) It's still the ultimate utopian newsroom—and I still wish I could work there!

Voices of the People

Steve Yelvington has a good post wondering why so much of the media blogosphere is up in arms about the FCC's decision loosening the rules on newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership in media markets. (He doesn't cite any of the media blogs complaining about media concentration, but you know who you are!)

Yelvington says:

It seems to me a case of fighting the last war. Local television franchises are rapidly losing their luster, and today are little more than a "must carry" opening to cable distribution. Audiences are fractured. The sun is setting on both broadcast networks and local affiliates. Newspaper companies that might have gone on a rapacious acquisition binge a decade ago are now just trying to keep the wolf from getting through their own doors. And, of course, the Internet makes anyone and everyone a publisher.

That's exactly right. And while the knee-jerk reaction of many journalism-business pundits and participants is to rail against big chains and media consolidation, that really does represent an outmoded worldview. It's especially ironic for bloggers to complain about media concentration when blogs are precisely the reason that we now have more voices in any given marketplace than ever.

Let's go back in time a bit—a couple of decades is all you need—and remember when most major markets had a newspaper or two, three or four TV stations, a handful of radio stations doing news, some suburban weeklies--and that's about it. Talk about media concentration! Now any given market has hundreds and hundreds of local news and information choices, with thousands (millions) more from distant markets a click away online.

There's a "bigness is evil" mentality at work here that I think is simply outdated. Big may be bad (I'd question that, but never mind), but the media landscape has become so incredibly fragmented that we've got more diversity of thought and voices than ever. Those voices are increasingly grabbing pieces of the local ad pie, as well.

This is why, when we inevitably see the death of a big-city newspaper within a few years, the hole left in the local media will be much easier to fill than anyone can imagine. Blogs, local sites, community papers, Yahoo Groups, services like Yelp and Craigslist—all of these will pick up the slack and provide as much local coverage, if not more, than the deceased paper did.

This is a golden age of media, with a flourishing of multiple voices. Fretting about whether the struggling local newspaper also owns the fourth-rated local TV station is just missing the point.

A Sporting Chance

Good news: According to PaidContent and the International Herald Tribune, journalism organizations are finally banding together to fight back against the idiotic restrictions being placed on coverage by sports teams and leagues. Not sure why it took this long. But it's ludicrous that sports organizations—whose very existence owes so much to free publicity from the media—are trying to restrict journalists from doing their jobs and informing their readers and viewers about the games and their players.

Already, the new News Media Coalition has arranged boycotts of coverage of a couple of restriction-laden sporting events. I hope they continue to fight that way for coverage that benefits everyone.