I was still trying to digest Eric Alterman’s long, thoughtful article in the March 31, 2008 New Yorker about the demise of American newspapers when I noticed the March 29, 2008 Detroit Free Press Page One story from Mackinac Island.
Mackinac Island in March?
Who’d want to be there when there’s snow on the ground in Detroit?
But the paper sent a photographer and reporter to the Straits to investigate that oh-so critical question of whether island businesses will suffer a labor shortage because immigrants can’t easily get green cards.
Incidentally, the story is very good. But it’s the economics of the thing that concerns me here. I’m figuring the budget for that story. Let’s see, mileage for two cars, meals for two days (assuming a one-night motel stay) and probably some over time. Two staffers could easily ratchet that story well over a thousand bucks.
Now let’s see, where was I? Oh yes, the New Yorker’s fears for our Democracy should the subscription on newspapering as we know it expire.
According to Alterman, newspapers are willing to pay for hard-hitting investigative reporting. Internet news outlets are not. Take away paper newspapers and you take away all that important journalism that our nation depends on.
I’m not saying the labor situation on Mackinac Island in March isn’t important.
But I don’t think the Republic would fall for want of that report.
And I know the Free Press is spending lots of money in legal fees as it investigates Kwamegate. True, they no doubt expect to be reimbursed at city taxpayer expense when judges assess their Freedom of Information Act court costs back to the city Treasury.
Still, it takes an up-front investment of money and guts to do that reporting, and we don’t see it happening on the Web.
But at the same time they’re investigating Kwame and the state of the Straits, other Free Press reporters are told to spend not more than $20 a month on lunches, books, photocopies, whatever it takes to report. There are plenty of important stories that are not being reported because resources aren’t shared equally.
Kwamegate is the news from Detroit right now. What about other parts of Wayne County? Oakland County? How’re those beats covered?
By reporters with $20-a-month expense accounts? Afraid all too often that’s the way it is.
According to the New Yorker, ads on the Internet don’t pay nearly as much as newspaper ads. The papers are having to make do with far lower revenues from the Web.
Web-only news outlets are making do with the same puny ad returns. The difference is that they don’t have the overhead that comes from printing and delivering paper newspapers. They also don’t have the overhead that comes from investigating Kwamegates.
So the argument goes.
But how much of that Free Press news budget is being drained by the Kwame probe? Proportionally, it’s probably minute compared to the budget for covering the Detroit Tigers, Pistons, Lions and various other sports teams.
Would the Republic fall if we crossed off out-of-town travel by reporters and photographers to cover games?
I hear the screams, but hey, why not write a few of those sports stories, and maybe that Straits of Mackinac article, by phone?
I doubt it would save our Democracy, but it might save a newspaper or two.
Contact me at joelthurtell(at)gmail.comÂ
