I also didn’t say one should remove the profit motif entirely from newspapers; what I do believe in, though (and I can back it up with a lot of data) is that if you make profits the first priority at a newspaper, the quality of the newspaper suffers tremendously (for obvious reasons: it cuts into profits to have lots of people in jobs with high pay, and it’s not a very good business idea to pay someone to spend a couple of months on a single story; not to speak of paying photographers for their work etc.).

That (@Doktor) also addresses your comment. It’s too simplistic to claim that I’m saying newspapers can either make a profit or a newspaper. I never said that. It’s about priorities.

And if you look at major German newspapers, it would be tremendously hard to find obvious cases such as Judith Miller’s selling of the war (or other cases of fake reporting) in German newspapers (at least in the big ones, like FAZ or Sueddeutsche). I’m frankly still surprised how nonchalantly people are accepting this episode.

You’re right, though, to say that the tradition of journalism in Germany is different, and – in my opinion – that’s why – at least for me – German newspapers are simply of higher quality than US ones. Just recently, I read a lot of coverage of the war in Georgia in various newspapers, and of all the news sources, the German ones appeared to be most even, willing to look beyond the posturing of the various players involved and very willing to question their own governments weaknesses etc. That’s what I expect from a newspaper: No fluff, no “some say” crap, no “some progress seen” stuff. And there is too much of that stuff in the NY Times.

I frankly also don’t understand why people love the NY Times so much. I think the Christian Science Monitor is actually a better newspaper, often with much better analyses than the Times. The Times relies way too much on its reputation (and maybe that’s what bothers me about it so much, it’s almost dripping from its pages).

But the main point that has got lost completely in all of this is the simple fact that if newspapers do not fulfill their roles any longer who else will? Who will provide the in-depth information needed to understand what’s going on, to decide, for example, who to vote for?

As is obvious from some of the posts here, making profits the center of newspapers not only lowers their quality but it also makes people very suspicious of the motifs of the publishers. That’s also very toxic for a modern democracy.

“… a heavy bias toward getting the “moment.” This isn’t that surprising given that the Times is often referred to as “the paper of record.” I would come back from baseball with images that were shot full frame and perfectly lit–a photograph of an outfielder perfectly outstretched missing a catch, say. And often the editors would say: oh, that play wasn’t really a deciding factor, we don’t need it, but did you get the image of Derek Jeter hitting the game-winning home run? My response would be: who in the world would want to see another photograph of yet another guy swinging a bat? Those photographs are a dime a dozen… and people surely the readers get tired of seeing them every day! Don’t they?”

But to the Times, their job was to report on the news, not just show pretty pictures. Your job there was clearly delineated: get the play of the game, a nice shot of the most valuable player–and if you can come back with these moments captured with a good amount of aesthetics, more often than not you were considered a star photographer. What your backgrounds looked like, how tightly you shot the image (and how much of a crop you later applied to the original) was completely irrelevant.”

http://tinyurl.com/6788bu

Yesterday I was at a pub that was growing, not a newspaper, and it was such a relief.

concerning German newspapers: I’m always suspicious of the “its as as simpel as that” card – but yeah sure I’m reading German as well as American newspapers each day – love them and had the honor to work for some of them.

Wasn’t sure why I got the recommendation to fly , but it might have something to do with your second posting that the NYtimes is below the journalistic quality “you are used” to. I would really like to hear an argument supporting this – I love German papers and other European papers (Liberation, Guardian etc) as much as the NYtimes but I really don’t see the superiority of German Journalism against the NYtimes. Please explain.

To say that making a profit and making a newspaper dont go together sounds a bit simplistic to me – is there a German paper who is actually not keen on making a profit – there is a somewhat different tradition and philosophy in Germany on journalism and a different newspaper culture then in the States – yes – not better or worse just (a bit) different. But please name a German paper who is not keen on making a profit – I seem to be missing soemthing here because I havent heard a statement like that from the people who actually work at the German papers I know.

Doesnt make them less complicit in what is going on here in the US. The Times and the rest of the mainstream media have gotten on their knees for the Bush administration.. not what you expect from The Paper of Record.

You mentioned White House stenographer, Judith Miller.. add Neocon clown, Bill Crystal to the Times woeful record and you got yourself a right wing rag that no one who wants the truth turns to anymore for news.

It’s a shame that I have to read a paper from New Zeland to get news about the WH outing a CIA agent. Or a UK paper to read about how we were lied into a war.

Screw The Times… the magazine and book review section are still good….but I cant remember the last time i turned to them for news.

(Just to defend the Times once more, a lot of what gets covered on a daily basis seems to be for the record, since it is essentially the only paper of record for the States. They still break the occasional nuanced and exhaustively researched story, like the investigative piece on military officers appearing on news shows under retainer — which I think was on a Sunday A1. The Sunday Magazine seems to do a much better job of covering interesting stories at length with good journalistic quality. I am excited that — hopefully — the additional resources currently being poured into WSJ will result in higher quality journalism for both papers on a daily basis.)

Let me also make a little schpiel to all designers and photographers out there — I work as a designer on the editorial side of a publication and the only reason I know anything about the business side and the state of the industry is because I talk to the publisher of the mag frequently. I think we all need to start talking more with the other side of the wall so that we can think of ways to remain relevant as our industry changes in radical ways over the next five years.

But in principle, you’re right, you can make a profit with excellent journalism – but I’d be happy to argue that that’s only true if you put journalism first and the profit aspect second (and not the other way around as in all those sorry pieces of work that most people have to live with as newspapers).

As a thought experiment, imagine if the Times decided to cut back and publish only the Sunday edition. Lots of great news coverage (Week in Review, Sunday Business, most of the investigative pieces that win Pulitzers). Lots of glossy, beautiful photos (Sunday Mag, T: Style). Lots of culture coverage (Arts, Book Review). Probably lots of profit (luxury advertisers, business advertisers) — I’m sure Sunday is the highest margin section outside of the dregs of Saturday and Friday. But we would lose THE paper of record for the country, an immeasurable loss to the nation. We’d also probably lose a couple the country’s best foreign bureaux (ie, The Times’s Baghdad bureau is by far the only well-staffed bureau in Iraq outside of the BBC.)

@JM
Making a profit is not mutually exclusive to excellence in journalism and photojournalism. Again, let’s look at the Times — some of the best photography and long-form journalism and photojournalism comes in the Magazine, yet the Magazine is a pretty decent moneymaker for the Times. (T: Style is an even bigger moneymaker and does feature good talent in fashion photography and styling, but lets just say that the words aren’t the best in the business.)

@Mario
And I’ll beat on this dead horse — The Times is not owned by any right-wing corporation (it’s family-owned and the Sulzbergers are pretty center-left), and it is still considered the paper of record for the United States. Yes, it fucks up sometimes (umm, Judith Miller?) and it gives short shrift to foreign affairs, but it still covers a broad array of news and is very well written.

Most US newspapers aim for making a profit – and with that basic thinking you obviously cannot make a good newspaper (because firing essential people and paying photographers a pittance is a guarantee for not getting a good newspaper done).

It’s as simple as that. And as long as any discussion on this topic involves “making money” first, the steady decline of the newspaper business in the US will continue until there are no real newspapers left.

PS: “Doktor”, get a plane ticket to Germany and buy some newspapers there. It’s as simple an answer as that.

The American newspaper industry is nothing more than a propaganda wing of the Republican party and has become irrelevant to anyone interested in getting real news.

Wouldnt it be nice if there are just magazine with quality photography, articles and superb content? Most peoples answers here is probably yes -but is this really they way magazines have worked historically -and are supposed to work as a medium?

I am really all for great and quality content but the notion to transform the magazine (or newspaper) business into something high-brow as a whole does really not sound like a realistic solution to me. “The Scandal” and Erotica (=Tits), the Inside Scoop, Provocation etc have always been part of this world – as they have been of the medium of photography. I want to see good design and content – sure – but don’t make it into something elitist because then I might turn away too (or just read a good book, which I should be doing anyway)

http://www.slyck.com/story1746_Pirate_Bay_Refutes_Mygazine_Affiliation

Digital magazines (the flip-page-flash-player format) have audiences on the order of 100x lower than that. The format is clunky, not Google-able, unviewable on the iPhone, and unclickable/linkable. The only reason why mygazines has a chance of gaining a decent amount of uniques is because it consolidates all media properties (illegally) into one site — and even then quantcast tells us that the aud is now at 20K uniques/mo, plus the profile skews low-end (see the comparable sites). I would guess the high end of the audience of the site is 200-300K uniques/mo.

If you can read business numbers (circ, sales, etc.) Folio has a great piece on the digital strategy of the Atlantic. It’s a pretty good case study on how eds and publishers are approaching digital. http://www.foliomag.com/2008/atlantic-rising

I am really glad you raised that issue. A couple of weeks ago my wife bought me the weekend edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. I was blown away by the quality and size of the photos, and even more so by the depth and sophistication of the content. My remark to some friends was that this paper made the NYT look like our local paper. I had a similar reaction a couple of years ago when, on my way back from Berlin, I bought a copy of Der Spiegel. I read it on the flight back to Orlando, and was by no means finished when we landed.

The overall conclusion is still true, though: Newspapers in the US are suffering simply because they don’t deliver any real news any longer. If people want entertainment they switch on the TV.

End of the day, the people in charge are often over 40, have very little clue about this intaweb lark and therefore are pretty hesitant to embrace it.

Maybe we do need a few papers going out of business? Maybe a shake-up is needed, so that people finally take risks.

Radical, but maybe finally needed.

I’m amazed how newspapers cut cut cut to make the mandatory 30% margin and then wonder why they continue to lose circulation and advertisers.

Maybe it’s because they cut the unique content in favor of the generic canned copy that anyone can find on the front page of Yahoo.

Rosh
http://www.newmediaphotographer.com