Spokane7
65°Quick links: 2012 graduating seniors • Summer camp guide • Jobs: The Road Ahead • Prep sports • News quiz
In her Slight Detour post this morning, Marianne Love focuses on prospect of life after newspapers. Quoth: “One of the guiding principles I learned while working as a professional 
journalist was that communities rely on the newspaper to sort out truth from fiction/gossip/hearsay/inuendo and downright lies.” As a City Hall/courthouse reporter from 1984-93, I was part of the heyday of newspaper reporting in Kootenai County. On any given weekday, I was matched against aggressive reporters from the Coeur d’Alene Press, like Keith Erickson and Les Tidball, trying to get a scoop. If we didn’t dig out the story, John Rook and Ron Rankin were firing away re: local politics and issues from the KCDA studio above the old Wilson Drug store on Sherman Avenue. If it was news, one of the three media would sniff it out. Now, with the cutbacks at both the Press & SR in North Idaho, news goes unreported. I don’t think anyone is keeping close tabs on the county commissioners or county government. I doubt that the situation is going to get better in the near term. Nor do I see bloggers having the expertise or time to fill the void. The misinformed who relish the demise of “liberal newspapers” are myopic. Once the papers are gone, who’s going to provide the reliable info to discuss at the coffee shop?
D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.
999 W. Riverside, Spokane, WA 99201
P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210
Main switchboard: (509) 459-5000 • (800) 338-8801
Newsroom: (509) 459-5400 • (800) 789-0029
Customer service: (800) 338-8801
© Copyright 2012, The Spokesman-Review
Terms of use • Privacy policy • Copyright policy
Find DFO on Facebook
DFO on Twitter
PatrickH on March 18 at 4:12 p.m.
Can I just give my customers a topic to discuss every morning in my shop if all the papers fade away? I’ll even provide bullet point sheets with useful facts from wikipedia, because we all know how accurate wikipeida is.
hmoffsuite on March 18 at 4:24 p.m.
If I were a newspaper going online only right now, like the PI, I would be very aggressive in my development of the online paper. I would go for major market share in that new market that is being created. It will all come down to content. The medium of delivery is the only thing that changes. Good sites will (or should) have their investigatory news people and editorials. Local sports too.
mia on March 18 at 10:39 p.m.
I agree DFO, Newspapers, via print journalists do serve to dig into the details and the facts of a story and/or issue, and then present them to the public, thus we the public are often times made aware of things we might not otherwise know. One of the differences between newspaper journalists, and the internet posts, is that journalists have their degree, and with that they are taught and held to some ethics that can be ignored when posts are made on the internet, by anyone who cares to comment. It is always a good idea when reading anything to scrutinize it for it’s facts. But I believe that is especially true on the internet. I have no doubt that something (much) will be lost by the paring down and loss of what makes up a newspaper.
florined on March 19 at 12:14 a.m.
What HMO said.
I want validity and I’m willing to pay for that commodity. I know it’s painful for both the inveterate newspaper readers and for those who have approached news gathering/analyzing in the tradational way for print. But those who can adapt can still sell their reporting skills in new ways. The trick will be to find the technology that will allow exclusive access to payees, at least for a while. The speed of dispersion the internet allows will be the challenge.
cantyoureadthesigns on March 19 at 12:36 a.m.
Ummmm, didn’t anybody read Pitts’ column Wednesday in the S/R? He lays it all out, pretty clearly.
“Leonard Pitts Jr.: No newspaper, no watchdog
Leonard Pitts Jr.
The Spokesman-Review
On the day the last newspaper is published, I expect no sympathy card from Kwame Kilpatrick. Were it not for a newspaper – the Detroit Free Press – his use of public funds to cover up his affair with one of his aides would be unrevealed and he might still be mayor of Detroit.
Nor will I expect flowers from Larry Craig. Were it not for a newspaper – the Idaho Statesman – we would not know of his propensity for taking a “wide stance” in airport men’s rooms and he might still be serving in the U.S. Senate. And I doubt there will be a toast of commiseration from Reynaldo Diaz and Oscar Rivero. Were it not for a newspaper – the Miami Herald – they would still be living large on money scammed from an agency that builds housing for the poor.
…”
Leonard Pitts Jr.: No newspaper, no watchdog
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/mar/18/no-newspaper-no-watchdog/
Fishwife on March 19 at 10:37 a.m.
Don’t cry me a river for the owners of the Spokesman and CDA Press. Both have used their papers as weapons for their own business agendas. (e.g., RiverPark Square fiasco). Unfortunately any “government watchdog” role has eroded into a search for scintillating gossip rather than facts.
I do agree that nothing replaces the morning paper and a cup of steaming fava. There’s something about fetching the paper in your socks in the driveway on a frosty morning…