The dead tree media screams out, and I scream back

Perhaps Mark Morford of the San Francisco Chronicle is feeling defensive about newspapers, colloquially known as the "dead tree media," because he feels threatened.

Well he should. The Chronicle's sister paper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer folded its print edition on Tuesday, and last month the Rocky Mountain News did the same, and keeps only a phantom presence online.

The Chron is rumored to be the next big city paper to throw in the towel, but its popular SF Gate site will certainly live on.

The internet is killing newspapers, and there's a belief that blogs--such as this one--will replace them.

Here's what Morford says, as excerpted by the Chicago Tribune's Eric Zorn:

The hoariest snag in any preachy "a mature blogosphere will supplant old media" argument (is) the howling absence of all the essential, unglamorous work newspapers now do -- the fact-checking, interviewing, researching, all by experienced pros who know how to sift the human maelstrom better than anyone, and all hitched to 100+ years of hard-fought newsbrand credibility. What's the new yardstick for integrity? On what do you base your choices? Some fickle mix of personal mood, blood-alcohol level, and how many followers your given source has on Twitter? Right.

,,,Pick up the Times, the Post, the Chron -- or read their online products -- you immediately have an anchor, some credibility and authority, not to mention a sense of place and context. In whatever you read, you know there has been, at minimum, some real editorial oversight and integrity of product borne of trained, experienced editors and writers who, believe it or not, still value accuracy and truth above all else.

Don't believe me? I understand. Get your contemptuous butt into a real, extant newsroom (yes, before they're all gone), sit in on a few editorial meetings, talk to actual reporters who haven't yet been laid off, see how the meat is made, and decide for yourself.

...Saying "I read it on XYZ blog, so it must be true" still carries little weight in a serious discussion, whereas, "I read it in the Washington Post," gives you instant authority. Instant cred. Even today. Especially today. Has that authority unraveled and weakened in the wake of the Net and news-as-entertainment? Absolutely. Do we have anything better? Not yet. Not by a long shot.

Okay, bloggers such as myself are mean-spirited hacks. They, again maybe not.

I've never worked in a newsroom, and because of my political affiliation, I'm unlikely to be admitted into one.

But let me tell you something...journalism isn't as hard as the "pros" make it appear.

Bloggers are dismissed as amateurs by real reporters because we get our news from mainstream sources, real journalists write their own stuff by researching, interviewing, and pounding the pavement.

But on the other hand, check out this "original" reporting from the Chicago Breaking News, a composite site of Tribune Company local media outlets:

Prosecutors charged a retired Chicago Fire Department captain in a home invasion overnight, according to a Sun-Times News Group report. Albert Braggs, 57, was critically injured when he kicked in the door to a home and fought with the homeowners, according to the report on WBBM-AM's web site.

Just like bloggers...

Print editions of newspapers, and wire services such as AP, do the same thing.

During the presidential campaign, I got many of the same press releases from the John McCain campaign, and I'd write posts based on them, and what I uploaded wasn't too much different than what the "real guys" did.

Let's talk about that campaign, specifically, last year's Republican National Convention. There were mainstream media reporters I talked to--some of them sober, some of them smashed out of their gourds in the media reception area (blood-alcohol level?), who told me that they never stepped foot in the Xcel Center arena. They watched it on the big screen TVs in the media center--they never walked into the room where the speeches were given, where the news was being made. Sure, some of them interviewed prominent figures, one interviewed me. That guy walked twenty feet to find me.

Hard work.

As for myself, I do plenty of my own reporting. On my own dime, for instance, not only did I travel to St. Paul for the RNC, but in the last two years I drove to West Branch, Iowa, Liberal, Kansas, and Natchez, Mississippi for original Marathon Pundit material.

And I work a regular job--50 hours a week.

Blogs, or the next generation of them, will replace newspapers. Or newspapers will become more like blogs.

What will the end-result look like?

Gee...I dunno.

But if I find out you'll hear about it--in a Marathon Pundit exclusive.

"I read it on Marathon Pundit, so it must be true"

As for "cred," yeah, there are some rascal bloggers out there, real scum. But despite the presence of the dead tree media's vaunted fact-checkers, it still begat Jayson Blair, Janet Cooke, and Wade Roberts.

Technorati tags: media newspapers journalism business ethics fabrication new media blogging blogs rnc