Next: the blogs chew up and spit out the media’s self-examination, followed by mainstream media coverage of what the blogs made of the self-examination.

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But (to continue to borrow his metaphor), Simon’s remedy seems like weak medicine.

Simon’s testimony Thursday before a U.S. Senate subcommittee on the “Future of Journalism” had moments that held me in swoon: “[R]eaders acquire news from the aggregators and abandon its point of origin — namely the newspapers themselves.” Anyone with even a little ink in his veins must have felt a tinge of righteous agreement. Can we get an amen? Or at least a little love for the reporters who make it possible for Google to be so awesome?

(Let’s set aside the whole question of why the Senate, which is expressly forbidden by the First Amendment to meddle with the press, is even holding hearings on the future of journalism. Frankly, the less time Congress spends deliberating it, the better, IMO.)

But the more I listened to Simon, (thanks, KRCC), and the more he tossed around the notion that “high-end journalism” is endangered, the more he sounded like someone who feels entitled:

I am offended to think that anyone, anywhere believes American institutions as insulated, self-preserving and self-justifying as police departments, school systems, legislatures and chief executives can be held to gathered facts by amateurs pursuing the task without compensation, training or for that matter, sufficient standing to make public officials even care to whom it is they are lying or from whom they are withholding information.

The idea of this is absurd, yet to read the claims that some new media voices are already making, you would think they need only bulldoze the carcasses of moribund newspapers aside and begin typing. They don’t know what they don’t know — which is a dangerous state for any class of folk — and to those of us who do understand how subtle and complex good reporting can be, their ignorance is as embarrassing as it is seemingly sincere.

I began to get the sensation that Simon was stuck on the island, waving frantically as my life raft began to drift away. As far as I am concerned, he disappeared from view completely as he closed in on the conclusion of his remarks:

[I]t is the birthright of every healthy newspaper to hold itself indifferent to such constant disdain and be nonetheless read by all. Because in the end, despite all flaws, there is no better model for a comprehensive and independent review of society than a modern newspaper.

Hubris, anyone?

There are good economic reasons why journalism, which does not require a license to practice, nonetheless became professionalized in the 20th century: the tools necessary to do the job — mass publishing and broadcasting — were so bloody expensive. A community had no choice but to give the job of covering their local institutions to a relatively few people, who helped keep that trust by enforcing professional standards: accuracy, veracity, independence.

Citizens didn’t give the job of covering the community to journalists because citizens were unwilling or too stupid to demand accountability on their own; they did it because it was the only way they could get the job done. The prohibitive costs of one-to-many communication didn’t permit any other effective way.

Those costs have, for all intents and purposes, vanished. And with them has vanished the absolute need for a community to assign all of journalism’s responsibilities to trained journalists.

Simon is right that much of the work of journalism is unrelated to the cost of distribution. It takes time, and therefore money, to constantly watch local government, to attend meetings, read documents, meet with sources, make phone calls — to say nothing of the time it takes to actually sit at the keyboard and write. Until the cost of doing that job vanishes as the cost of distribution has vanished, there remains an economic reason to put much of the job of reporting into the hands of trained specialists.

But, not only in the hands of trained specialists. The circle of participation has widened, and journalists must make room for others in an enlarged ecosystem of news. It’s not either-or. It’s both-and. It’s not shut up and read your paper. It’s how can we help you?

At this hour, many residents of Falcon School District 49 are mounting a recall election against their board of education. Their ire was sparked not only by Gazette news coverage of the board, but by information that many residents received directly from the school and then began circulating among themselves, without the newspaper’s help. There is a web site for the recall movement. The Gazette, to be sure, has done its share of reporting, and I’ve even created a discussion forum to keep D-49 residents up to date on the Gazette’s battles with the board over public documents and open meetings.

This is still journalism. It is still vitally important to at least some residents of District 49. But it is journalism in partnership with the community. Equipped with cheap distribution tools, D-49 residents have joined the circle. The Gazette no longer commands the center of the discussion. We either collaborate with the community — representing all sides of the debate, and with our dedication to truth, veracity and independence intact — or we will be pushed aside.

I don’t suspect D-49 parents care whether “high-end journalism” is at work here. Really, it’s not journalism they want, anyway. It’s school-board accountability they want, whether journalism helps them get it or not. If the participants in the current D-49 drama come away from events satisifed that, win or lose, they got accountability from their school board, the journalism will have been as high-end as it needed to be. And I don’t believe for a second that anyone who gets personally involved, who signs a petition, or posts an item on the recall website, or marches to yet another endless school board meeting, will wish they could have been spared the trouble and that the newspaper would have taken care of things for them.

The cause is not journalism. The cause is a free society, able to get the information it needs to remain free. The rest is just method.

So I guess I wasn’t surprised to hear Simon argue that journalism’s big misstep was failing to make itself so valuable to people that they would pay for it, and that salvation (if it’s not too late to achieve it) lies in forcing people to pay to read news online. Publishers, he testified, missed their opportunity to cement journalism’s rightful place at the top of the information food chain in the 1970s, when profits were fat and Wall Street marched in to skim much of it off. When the Internet came along, too many reporters and editors already had been laid off to create journalism so compelling that readers would pay to get it online.

Simon has a solid foundation on which to make this argument:

It costs money to do the finest kind of journalism. And how anyone can believe that the industry can fund that kind of expense by giving its product away online to aggregators and bloggers is a source of endless fascination to me. A freshman marketing major at any community college can tell you that if you don’t have a product for which you can charge people, you don’t actually have a product.

But the question isn’t whether journalism has value. Of course it does, and there isn’t a freeloading blogger who doesn’t know it. Simon’s foundational argument isn’t wrong; it’s just irrelevant.

The truth is, citizens have never paid for journalism — or at least, not for all of it, not even during the salad days before newsroom cutbacks began. Ninety cents of every dollar of journalism has always been subsidized by advertisers. I haven’t heard any evidence yet that folks would, without complaint, pick up the costs that advertisers have been covering all these decades.

If readers won’t pay that cost, Simon argues that turning newspapers into nonprofits, living off donations, grants and endowments, is the most promising alternative. Whole other discussion.

My ego wishes Simon were right. My head tells me otherwise.

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The most powerful and (to a journalist) affirming element of Sullivan’s argument: It’s not either-or. It’s both-and.

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Please take a look at the page we just launched today. You’ll find an interactive police blotter that allows you to search by location, certain crime types and date (back to December 2007). You can find the blotter on the main page at gazette.com or you can click on the Info Center tab on that main page.

You’ll also find a map that charts all of the crimes and misdemeanors that made it onto the blotter.

We’re still hoping to find a way to allow you to dig deeper into the blotter — and to get access to additional public records, but you can already start searching the map and the list for trends on arrests, BOLO (Be On the Look Out alerts), burglaries, deaths and car crashes, among other things.

At a quick glance, it seems there were far more robbery calls in the afternoon and evening than in the morning. No surprise there. Disturbances are pretty evenly spread — nine in the A.M. and 12 in the P.M.

Let us know if you find something we ought to be pursuing.

Now let’s be careful out there.

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“Facts derive their meaning from the context in which viewers see them.”

I’m still getting my head around that assertion. I always thought facts are facts. If Rosenstiel is right and facts exist only as part of a personal context, is it possible to arrive at truth?

Truth is, after all, journalism’s first obligation. Rosenstiel wrote that.

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But today, his opponent, John McCain, is scheduled to be in Denver, at a public appearance starting at noon.

Today’s question, class, is this: Should the McCain story also be placed on the Gazette front page?

The reflexive decision inside the newsroom is: No. The big reason: Obama came to Colorado Springs. McCain is not coming to Colorado Springs. The McCain story is not as local; therefore, not as newsworthy; therefore, not deserving of such a prominent position.

Some other ingredients in the mix:

Obama coming right into the heart of the most Republican territory in Colorado was a nervy move. News points for that.

On the other hand, Denver is the most Democratic territory in Colorado — and the site of the Democratic National Convention next month. Should McCain get news points for that?

The Denver papers played Obama’s visit to the Springs on their respective front pages. One could argue that Colorado Springs paper therefore should play McCain’s visit to Denver on its front page.

On the other hand, both Denver papers are covering the Democratic convention — and all the events leading up to it — with everything they have. Thus, Obama is very much a local story in Denver right now. He could have changed a flat tire in Durango, and he would have been front-page news in Denver.

McCain probably is going to be front-page news in the Tuesday editions of the Denver papers. That makes sense: his public event will be held in Denver. The Rocky Mountain News is liveblogging the event, just as the Gazette did with Obama last week. The Denver Post is not, as far as I can tell.

But, would a McCain appearance in Colorado Springs make the front pages in Denver? That’s not so obvious, though my guess is yes because of Denver’s place on the presidential-election stage this year. The Springs is not on that stage.

Still more factors to consder:

Will McCain make news? Will he announce a running mate, for example? Or unveil a new policy direction? That would up the news value.

How big is the crowd? If half a million people materialize and paralyze Denver during his appearance, McCain’s news value goes up.

FWIW, “equal time” is not relevant. Equal time is a rule that applies only to broadcasters, not to newspapers or the Internet. And the rule comes into play only when a candidate requests time on the air in response to time given to an opponent; there is no requirement that broadcasters keep a ledger of airtime and make sure it balances. In any case, the rule doesn’t apply to news events such as campaign appearances.

For a newspaper/website, the real goal is appropriate context and fair treatment. When McCain makes a whistle stop appearance in South Carolina, it’s not front-page news in Colorado Springs — and might not be news in our pages at all. On the same day, an Obama appearance in our city is a front-page story. Proximity matters. Denver is more proximate than South Carolina, so McCain will get coverage in our pages, from one of our own staff reporters. The question will be where to place the story.

UPDATE: McCain’s audience was about 400 people. Based on news reports, he said he favors reducing tax rates, supports free trade and supports renewable energy. Not terribly surprising positions for any GOP candidate — and ones that already have received press attention. The newsiest angle to emerge appears to be McCain’s call to reinvigorate nuclear power generation.

It doesn’t add up to a slam-dunk page-one placement, but let’s see what other news develops, or doesn’t, throughout the rest of the day. There might not be much competition for page one tomorrow.

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I wonder about the ability of this new concept to overcome the much older concept of free riders. But hey, it works for public radio.

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The most-viewed story today at gazette.com, by a 9-1 margin over the No. 2 story, is the ongoing revelations in the John Newsome story. First it was KOAA’s hidden-camera report on his drinking and driving; then it was Newsome’s mea culpa.

Modern journalism must do many things. It must tell the story of what happened and what to watch for. It must be an independent monitor of public institutions and officers. It must present a rounded picture of community life. It is trying to figure out how to be an enabler of a community network, and not a mere announcer of facts that a group of editors decides is important.

In this Long-Tail, Here-Comes-Everybody, web2.0 world, going out and getting the story almost seems like making buggy whips. Any blogger with a decent cellcam could have reported and published the Newsome story, and it would have been just as important and newsworthy. Maybe someday soon, someone will do something equally as blockbuster. Actually, not maybe. It will happen.

And when it does, citizens will be equally transfixed, as they should be. Because it’s not the method that matters. It’s the information. Accountability from our public servants still matters. Thus, the watchdog still matters, and their numbers are increasing.

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Now phone calls are coming in to Bill and the El Paso County Assessor from people who say they may have been taken in by the same kind of lending tactics.

As they say in the biz, this story has legs. Stay tuned.

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Metro is back.
On Tuesday, March 25, the Metro section returns, separated from the A section.
But that’s only the first of several changes coming to The Gazette on Tuesday.
The most sweeping change will be the paper’s size. Our pages will be one inch narrower. The top-to-bottom length of the pages will not change.
The change is meant to save money, of course. After payroll, newsprint is our largest single expense, and this change will reduce newsprint consumption by about 8 percent.
Newspapers have been cutting costs for several years to offset declining print-advertising revenue as the news business migrates from paper to pixels. Publishers are shrinking their newsrooms and their delivery territories, outsourcing where they can, and reducing newsprint consumption.
Last year, for example, the agency that publishes the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post hired The Gazette to deliver their papers in our region. Our newsroom shares stories with the Rocky and the Greeley Tribune. My gut says these kind of partnerships will become more common.
Editors are taking a hard look at all the forms of news and information they put on the press. That brings me to the other changes you’ll see in your Gazette starting Tuesday:
- The Business section will move into the Metro section. The move saves newsprint, and it gives business a later deadline, so news can be updated later in the evening.
- On Saturdays, stocks and mutual-fund listings will be replaced with a page of market summaries, as is done currently Tuesdays-Fridays.
- On Sundays, the Travel section will be merged into the Life section.
- The daily TV programming grid, which has appeared on the Pop page Monday-Saturday, will be eliminated. Almost every listing in the grid also is contained in the Sunday TV guide. We will publish, on the Pop page, any programming changes or updates.
- The opinion pages will appear in the final two interior pages of the A section. Obituaries will precede the opinion pages, as they do now.
- The weather report will be published on the back of the metro/business section.
Any time changes are made, we get calls from readers who say the type has been made smaller. I promise, we are not changing the size of any type.
Finally, you’ll notice one change that should make the Gazette easier to read. We will display the continuation of the lead front-page story on page A2. No more thumbing to the back of paper. Most other story “jumps” will be confined to the very front section.
Our daily calendar will be expanded and moved to page A3. Also on A3, you’ll find a robust roundup of the best reading and viewing now appearing at gazette.com.
For generations, newspapers didn’t change much. They didn’t have to. Those days are gone, and change is the new constant. More are sure to come, and all of our changes will be made with the objective of being an essential provider of, and guide to, local news and information.

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