Perhaps It's Time To Make Newspapers More Efficient...
from the less-redundancy-please dept
In going through the regular complaints from newspaper folks about the supposed (but not really) "death" of newspapers, we've criticized the industry for almost never suggesting ways to actually improve the product -- only ways to limit the online competition. However, there's a second point that's worth exploring as well: they rarely look at ways to make their own jobs more efficient. We've questioned the wisdom of massive redundancy in foreign bureaus among newspapers, and Ana Marie Cox is similarly wondering about what a waste the White House Press corp. is these days. As she notes, they sit around "waiting to be told things." The White House press corp. never seems to break any stories, other than the ones just handed to them, and then you have all of the press corp. simply parroting the same talking points from the White House. That's not needed, nor efficient. At some point, newspapers will realize that there are more efficient ways of covering the news rather than stationing yet another reporter in a bureau where there are already a ton of stenographers who can do the same thing. That's neither efficient nor is it adding value.Filed Under: journalism, newspapers, redundancy, white house bureau