Declining news values

This link courtesy of Martin Stabe.

It comes from the San Francisco Chronicle where

"100 newsroom jobs will be slashed in the coming weeks in the face of mounting financial woes represents just the latest chapter in a tragic story of traditional journalism's decline. "

On the basis of print's decline against the internet where advertising revenues are falling and competition is high.Yes we have heard it all before.


Perhaps though the opinion makes a valid point

The average citizen may not realize how severely the public's access to important news, gathered according to high standards, may be threatened by these bottom line trade-offs.
When journalists' jobs are eliminated, especially as many as The Chronicle intends, the product is inevitably less than it was. The fact is there will be nothing on YouTube, or in the blogosphere, or anywhere else on the Web to effectively replace the valuable work of those professionals


And this will lead to

1. " a world where the craft of reporting the news fairly and independently is very much endangered"
2. a society increasingly fractured, less informed by fact and more susceptible to political and marketing propaganda, cant and bias.
3. the pursuit of truth in service of the public interest is declining as a cultural value in our society amid this technological tumult
4. a world where professional journalism, practiced according to widely accepted ethical values, is a rapidly diminishing feature in our expanding news and information systems"