This Is Why Newspapers Are Dying

I’ve worked as a professional journalist, and I make my living as a professional writer.  But this, below… this quote so irks me that I just have to share it:

“Citizen journalism is no substitute for the work of trained and experienced reporters,” said David Simon, a former Baltimore Sun writer and the creator of the HBO series “The Wire.” “High-end journalism is a profession,” he testified. “I am offended to think that anyone, anywhere believes that American institutions as insulated, self-preserving, and self-justifying as police departments, school systems, legislatures, and chief executives can be held to [account] …by amateurs, pursuing the task without compensation, training, or for that matter, sufficient standing to make public officials even care to whom it is they are lying or from whom they are withholding information.”  – from Good Morning Silicon Valley

1. Police departments, school systems, legislatures, and chief executives are held accountable by the citizens of this country, not to the press!  This is the most pompous statement I have heard in years, and sums up exactly why “citizens journalism” is needed now more than ever.  Back in 1776 newspapers were run by anyone who bought and operated a press, and that is the “press” that is protected by the US Constitution!  They were “citizen journalists.”  When, tell me, did “the press” become a church with only anointed ones granted this elevated status?
2. This elitist attitude by so-called professional journalists alienates the readers, many of whom are the “citizen journalists” they so despise.  Know Thy Audience, idiots! You don’t keep your readership by insulting them.  All you get is a big fat “F-U” and the loss of readers.
3. Newspapers are not dying because of Google.  Newspapers would be in even worse shape if Google wasn’t sending so much traffic their way!
4. Newspapers are dying because readership is changing and the newspapers are in denial.  Google is handing them business on a silver platter and they’re ignoring it and instead, actually biting the hand that is trying to feed them.
5. If printed journalism is to survive, and it will, it must adapt to the way their readers are coming to them.

Dinosaurs died because the environment changed and they did not.

Those who own the printed news medias need to learn from the dinosaurs, or they will join them.