Arianna Testifies About The Future Of Journalism Before Senate Subcommittee On Communications

Arianna testified about the future of journalism and newspapers before the Senate Commerce Communications subcommittee on Wednesday. John Kerry, the subcommittee's chairman, has worried that newspapers are an "endangered species." Testifying alongside Arianna were Steve Coll, former managing editor of The Washington Post; James Moroney, publisher and chief executive of The Dallas Morning News; Marissa Mayer, vice president, search products & user experience for Google; David Simon, the creator of the "Wire"; Alberto Ibarguen, president and CEO of the Knight Foundation.

WATCH Arianna's opening remarks

WATCH John Kerry asks Arianna about the Huffington Post

Comments

[azeema]

Efxaristo para poli Arianna! You hit the nail on the head. It's time those neanderthals woke up. But then again, that's why Jurassic Park is history.

[beaupritchard]

My concern is that content providers will begin getting paid not to print(dispense) stories. Politicians and financial types are already screaming too much information is out there about them and what they are doing. Both have access to large amounts of money. An ignorant public is a controllable public.

[politisophical]

the foundation for the future of journalism has been laid.. its blogs, streaming news, and website. all we are waiting for is for someone to bring a business model that will employ quality journalist..

im not saying that citizen journalist are less valuable than professional journalist.. im saying that professional journalist are need to keep pressure on politicians and community leaders...

plus the last 8 years have shown me that America need citizen journalist to keep professional journalist honest and uncorrupted...

[themainpoint]

Arianna's opening remarks inspired me. They were so forthright and so grounded in the best American values that it was truly refreshing.

I couldn't help thinking about how the first Republics in world history were born in a part of the world she has ties to as an American with Greek heritage. This brought to mind how much our founding fathers were influenced by how the old Republics allowed citizens to impact government.

It just seemed sort of fitting that Arianna's blog is educating citizens and very likely facilitating a healthier participation in government.

Many, many thanks!

[Foodymoody]

I get the impression that many people posting comments here didn't actually watch the hearing. To me, Arianna (much as I love her site and all she does) did in no way satisfactorily answer David Simon's cogent description of the problem. Neither did Ms. Google (sorry, I can't recall her name).

The problem is that there will be no reporters—real, live journalists who do the hard, thankless, heavy lifting (dozens or hundreds of hours of going under cover to get stories, developing relationships and inside contacts, fact checking, etc. etc.)—unless they can earn a living. And they can't earn a living if there is no legal (and technical) protection for their intellectual property—the "product" they create by actual labor (shoe leather!).

If you think our country is in dire straights now, wait until there are NO reporters keeping watch on our government and corporate entities. (It's ironic that this very story is an example of the problem about which Mr. Simon spoke; it's Arianna's blog so we get Arianna's argument and none of David Simon's. Sigh.)

[themainpoint]

"If you think our country is in dire straights now, wait until there are NO reporters keeping watch on our government and corporate entities."

Sorry, Foodymoddy, but have you noticed the state of everything in our country? The economy? Bailouts? Wars? Healthcare? Energy? Global Warming?

I think it's clear that many reporters who were "keeping watch" at our traditional news places were not doing their jobs so well. So, although I agree with the fact that we need more principled and competent journalists who do their jobs and to cover many stories, I'm not sure the newspapers that are going down hired enough such journalists. Maybe in the future, they will restructure or retrain their reporters and all will be even better. The truth has a way of shining through and speaking to people (IT SELLS!)

If not, take heart, because there is a whole generation of independent journalists waiting for their chance at the wheel. Maybe they'll do a better job.

[IssuesInFocus]

The dire straights are here my friend. Those of who went to school majored and gradudated in journalism have long been by-passed by those who were encouraged to become 'muckrakers' and were thrown microphones to be-dazzle than to give the facts behind a story.
I now watch in amazement as some comedians, politicians and the "Hannitys "of our time become the representation of new media. Some are good the rest are totally bad! Not to mention there is no diversity in media. The 'faux' of it all, the best of those who may be called journalists have been pushed out of the business while the loud mouths and 'jokers' remain both on the print and broadcast side of the business.
Great that blogging allows some of our well informed to have a say-- at least on this platform we can pick, choose and refuse.. what we read and 'digest.'

[nellie]

We may not need to save newspapers, but we certainly need to save news organizations that do most of the investigative reporting in this country. And right now, those are newspaper organizations.

We need some way to transition the training, staff, and know how in those news organizations to the net. We need the well-trained journalists, we need the standards, we need the investigative reporting.

Most of the articles we're reading on this site come from newspapers. Think about it.

[furrina]

What killed newspapers is the people who work at/own newspapers. Good journalism is good journalism regardless of the medium. If the management making the decisions hadn't seen technology that they could put to good use as a threat or a fad and spent time and money putting it to good use years ago, they wouldn't be in the position they're in today. It seems ridiculous to me to fight over whether something is "better" because it's on a big piece of paper, a computer screen, or a television.

[RobertJ88]

First, newspapers were among the first to go online, and not just the major players but across the country. To this day they attract some of the biggest online audiences. The issue is also not print vs digital. The issue is that it has been exceptionally difficult to develop a digital business model that will generate enough revenue to fund the kind of reporting newspapers do every day ... and has been successfully funded by print advertising. Many of the digital sites which are seen as the future don't do a great deal of original reporting, and in many (if not most) cases, they're not even profitable.

[image18301]

Like it's been said before, this issue would not exist if the journalists did what we all need them to do. So many examples have been cited that prove that they dropped the ball in reporting what We The People need to know. They wrote themselves out of a job - and out of relevancy.

[rabrophy]

Why not just charge a subscription fee and be done with it?
I get Scientific American, encyclopedia Britannica, and Fine Woodworking on line for a fee and it beats getting a magazine monthly or having a 3 ton encylpida in my home. Also, it a lot "Greener" than chopping up trees and shipping them all over the place.
I'd gladly pay a fee for the NYT or Huff Po
The Internet has done to the printing press what the printing press did to the scribes, get over it.

[armacas]

You are completely missing the point: Consumer habits have changed (not yours, obiously - not yet, anyhow), i.e. there is less and less willingness to pay for content. People have come to expect free news, and any other content out there. Also, media consumers demand new ways in which the news/content is presented to them.

That leaves advertising as the only option to pay for the production of content. But, as of this moment in time, there is no consenus (technology?) on how the advertising dollar is to be 'spread' among content producers and distributors.

[Rallis]

Smart lady.
Arianna for President! (of Greece)

[Steve Sanders]

Good point!

[LeeCalif]

Why Ap is worthless. Today's headline:

New jobless claims unexpectedly plunge to 601,000 AP – 25 mins ago

[MinnesotaPurple]

Why save newspapers?

The Boston Globe broke the story of child molestation in the Catholic Church. Investigative reporting costs money. All I see here are leeches who grab other peoples work, and make comments about them. They call themselves journalists. But what have they done to contibute to society?

COMMENTING IS NOT THE SAME AS INVESTIGATING.

Newspapers are BOTH print and online. Where do you think 90% of what Arianna posts on this website comes from? Tradional media. Someone has to make a living investigating these stories.

I know print is extremely difficult to use. It requires getting out of bed, getting a cup of coffee, going out to the porch and picking it up. As opposed to lugging a laptop around, and looking at biased websites with 'journalists' who sit in their pajamas making wisecracks.....

[Brookyln35street]

Thank you!!!! I agree with every word. I don't want a city without a local newspaper. Without newspaper reporter, who get sources in the community they live so many things will go unheard. Not only the bad, but what makes a community good. Bloggers don't be trick without the newspapers the world will suffer.

[Bardmess]

The debate shouldn't be about whether journalism is on paper, or computer screens, it should be about who pays for it. Journalists need to eat, too. Rosa Brooks wrote in her last article, before leaving print newspapers for the White House, that journalism needs and deserves economic stimulus, in other words, government subsidy. If they have to depend on advertising alone, well, it's like having lobbyists owning and running the Senate.

[Pursuance]

Damn, MP, you beat me to it. I agree with you wholeheartedly. If you can show me that smart and sophisticated investigative journalism can survive without newspapers, then I wouldn't have so much a problem with them going away.

[Anthony Taurus]

I hope they don't attempt to try to save or subsidize print. It's a dead medium for a reason. Everyone has the internet at the tip of their fingers. What they should be doing is concentrating on the internet more. The real problem is that we have a bunch of old people at the top who just don't get that their era is over and it's time to move on.

You dinosaurs are already extinct, you're just waiting for the meteor to hit for no reason.

[PlayTOE]

The government cannot protect newsprint only papers for the same reason that it could not protect the buggy whip industry.

[GhostwriterDoF]

It wasn't technology that killed the newspapers. What really killed the papers is the same thing threatening the Network News corporations. It is a lack of the public trust. Lots of People are watching the news, but few are listening. Everything is tabloid now.

Because of Technology information can no longer be controlled, especially with millions of citizen journalists armed with portable video and text communication devices. And when John mentioned overhead, he means over-head, like those Albatross satellites floating around that cost billions to maintain. The only thing that can save the News corps is to restore their integrity, which unfortunately under their current management, they have none. Arianna and her staff earned my trust. That is why I read through the HuffPost and the linked sites everyday first before I watch or ready any other news.