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Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Why do media companies hate journalism?

After all this time, that's really what all this boils down to
The Internet has done nothing to newspapers compared to what their corporate owners have done. The Internet took away an easy source of revenue nobody had to think about.

That’s all the Internet did. The rest of it, the cuts and the equating “less” with “not enough” and the justification and the trend-chasing and the flailing and the insulting readers and potential customers and the clueless bitching in the trades and the corporate weasel-speak, that was ALL a business management issue. We spent a decade having blogger ethics panels and not a goddamn minute having boardroom ethics panels, and this is the result.

And for that, firings aren’t the answer and paywalls aren’t the answer and hyperlocal isn’t the answer and writing endless wanking editorials about “digital first” aren’t the answer and for the love of Our Lord Baby Jesus the First Keyboarder cutting production days and cancelling home delivery aren’t the answer because Jesus God, people just want a good paper.
Ownership does not value the product based on whether or not its fulfills its mission. Ownership doesn't even care about whether the product is sustainable over time.  Ownership only values the product based on whatever the margins were last quarter... or at least whatever the groupthink tells them will squeeze more out of less. Liquidate it all, if you have to. See if they give a shit.

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