No resources for quality

 
Column We will continue to need reliable journalistic information in the future. But at what price will depend on the advertising industry's realization that advertisements in credible advertising media also bring more on the Internet. 
When America's newspaper publishers and editors-in-chief fly into Washington D.C. in mid-April for their joint annual conference, they will once again have to encourage each other. Circulation declines are accelerating and the advertising business is also miserable - not only due to the recession, but also because more and more classified ads are migrating to the Internet, never to be seen again: Americans are increasingly getting their news from the Internet - and clicking more and more frequently on the websites of the major newspapers. In addition, online offerings are continuing to see strong growth rates in advertising revenue. However, they are far from compensating for the losses in the traditional printed newspaper business. It is also annoying that the lion's share of clicks, and therefore advertising revenue, goes to free riders: Google, Yahoo and Co. who offer news on their portals without making an appropriate contribution to the editorial production costs.
According to this year's "Report on the State of the US Media" by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, the outlook for quality journalism is bleak: "The biggest problem facing traditional media is no longer where people get their information, but how to pay for it. It is becoming clear that the advertising industry is not moving into the online news world together with consumers. News offerings and advertising appear to be fundamentally decoupled," the report states. If this were true, it would not only be the printed daily newspaper that would permanently lose its financial basis, but also high-quality journalism in general.
My own impressions confirm the picture: many big-city newspapers have thinned out alarmingly in just a few years. Two examples: The San Francisco Chronicle often has only local news on page one. The following pages are a cheap blend of AP, New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post - a discontinued model. The paper has lost almost 30 percent of its circulation within four years. But the second big "metro paper" in the Bay Area, the San Jose Mercury News, which covers Silicon Valley, is also emaciated and only a shadow of its former self. Just a few years ago, it was celebrated as a trendsetter. He showed the way for what the future of newspapers could look like in the Internet age. He may still be doing so, but there will no longer be a future for the printed paper.
Even the "gray old lady", as the New York Times was once affectionately known, is irritating. Recently, she has been stalking the tabloids in a shrill outfit from time to time. First she tried to frame Republican presidential candidate McCain for having an affair with a lobbyist, without ultimately being able to prove it. Then she landed a "real" scoop and brought down New York Governor Spitzer. However, the important question of whether the sex scandal was not primarily a scandal because state investigating authorities ruthlessly violated the politician's privacy was lost in the media spectacle. The following day, America's number one media outlet instead reported on the prostitute with whom Spitzer had been having fun - with a photo gallery and details of her private life. In the maelstrom of scandal, the actual top news was practically overlooked: The commander of the US armed forces in the Middle East and therefore also in Iraq, William J. Fallon, had resigned - apparently in disagreement with the Bush administration.
Everything possible and impossible is being tried, but there seems to be no way out of the crisis in sight. Media expert Michele McLellan recently compared the newspaper industry to telephone manufacturers who are desperately adding new buttons to an old corded and push-button telephone, even though the iPhone has long been a competitor on the market. Unfortunately, the comparison is misleading: the iPhone has made the old technology superfluous. On the other hand, we will still need reliable journalistic information in the future - and will probably have to dig a little deeper into our pockets for it, unless the advertising industry rediscovers in time that advertisements on the Internet also bring more if they are distributed by particularly credible advertising media.
Stephan Russ-Mohl heads the European Journalism Observatory at the University of Lugano.