May 28, 2009
Does America Need a 'News Corps'?
To make sure journalism continues to serve as democracy’s watchdog while the newspaper industry makes difficult changes, an organization similar to Teach for America is needed to recruit, train, and deploy a new generation of reporters, writes Ken Doctor, the former managing editor of St. Paul’s Pioneer Press, in Minnesota.
On his blog about journalism, Content Bridges, he suggests that big foundations establish a “News Corps” that would support 1,000 young reporters, who would earn $35,000 a year.
“That’s a tab of $35-million a year, a paltry sum by many measures and one that could be funded by a consortium of foundations to keep it free of government taint. News organizations, start-up and legacy, could apply for positions, promising mentorship, learning, and engagement,” he writes.
The group would seek to get college graduates as excited about journalism as Teach for America has about public education.
“Let’s re-kindle the fire,” Mr. Doctor writes, “knowing that a thousand flashlights poking into near and far corners of our communities is a good and timely thing.”
What do you think? Would a News Corps help revitalize the news industry? Would it be a worthwhile project for grant makers?
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With print publications failing at the rate it is, I don’t think a News Corps will solve the problem. Traditional publications are failing largely because of the rise of social media, i.e. blogs, twitter, etc. People find it more convenient to get their news from their peers via the internet, unfiltered, than through the dailies.
— John May 28, 01:28 PM #
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about this topic lately, and this is an awesome idea. I’ve worked in media (audience development and marketing) for 20+ years, agree that trad’l pubs are failing in large part due to social media, but the real issue is not “news”, it’s the devastating loss of true investigative journalism. That is almost completely dead. The “investigative” journalism in social media is 99% garbage or so slanted as to be useless. A News Corps would have to hammer the “investigative” part. Here’s the real rub: do foundations and the people who donate to them and run them actually want real investigative journalism?
— Kathy May 28, 03:14 PM #
This is a bizarre suggestion. the field of reporting is rapidly vanishing> there would be no jobs for this corps< after they finished their year> so it would be one year of training for nothing> i agree that something needs to be done to preserve reporting< but the solution is not one year“s salary for young people< unless all reporting is to become government and foundation funded> let’s hope the public and advertisers show some willingness to pay for the news.
— Betsy May 28, 03:15 PM #
It’s an interesting idea, but no, I don’t think it is necessary or would work to “save” journalism. The problem is not a lack of young talent willing to work cheap . . . the problem is that no major news org has figured out a way to make money on the internet yet.
And as for “unfiltered” news, John, tho you are right that many people think that’s what they want, unfiltered is also unedited and often uninformed, ill-conceived and one-sided.
I think news orgs need to become activists and advocates for the role they play in society. Maybe we need “A Day Without Content” to drive home the point that most of what people read and find interesting and informative on the internet is provided by traditional news organizations that are all struggling right now.
— DDG May 28, 03:37 PM #
This is a great idea. Despite the quickly shrinking number of print media outlets, we will always need trained, unbiased reporters. A start-up training program would presumably prepare reporters to work in various media outlets. I have just two suggestions:
1) Offer opportunities to any qualified individual who is passionate about the cause, not just young people.
2) Give it another name. News Corp could easily be confused with “News Corp.,” the name of Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate. This unfortunate coincidence could only hurt the training program, which is intended to counter the kind of biased journalism that is associated with Murdoch’s empire.
— Caroline May 28, 04:11 PM #
1,000 reporters? $35K a year? Are these numbers out of a hat? Journalism is not dying, it is changing. What is happening is the separation of ads from news in the traditional connection of the newspaper and TV.
The news organizations brought their current crisis on themselves by expanding their coverage of the news from a morning/evening news cycle to a 24 hour cycle. The internet/blogs/forums/etc can cover this 24 cycle much better than a traditional news org ever could—in fact most news orgs don’t even have the ability to cover the comments sections on their own sites for a particular article, they outsource it to new media such as tupix.com or others.
This idea while interesting ignores the fact that journalism is moving into a more-decentralized setting which is still being created—instead of a highly centralized setting such as this proposal.
— Patrick May 29, 12:47 PM #