Public editor highlights independent site in survey of investigative journalism sources.
DECEMBER 13, 2015 — Today’s New York Times Public Editor column, “Keep the Flame Lit for Investigative Journalism,” included both 48 Hills and the San Francisco Bay Guardian in an incisive, two-part report on the state of investigative journalism. Public Editor Margaret Sullivan looks at the importance of such journalism, both in the political sphere and in contemporary pop culture touchstones like recent movie Spotlight, which tells the story of the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer-winning exposure of a corrupt Roman Catholic hierarchy in the wake of pedophilia revelations.
Considering the atomization of newspaper advertising and the rise of new models of journalism funding, Sullivan asked, “Can what’s left of newspapers, together with the new entrants, get the job done?”
“‘We have to,’ said Tim Redmond, former executive editor of The San Francisco Bay Guardian, a now-defunct alternative paper. He started 48 Hills, a nonprofit online news organization with a staff of two reporters. ‘Democracy can’t function without somebody holding the power structure accountable.'”
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Completely bogus headline.
They did a story on the current state of local investigative journalism and they got a quote from Tim Redmond.
They never offered any assessment of the value, effectiveness or role of 48 Hills.
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One could argue that 48 Hills in fact has a negative effect because of situations just like this. They lie constantly.
god help us all if the fate of investigative journalism rests in the hands of Tim Redmond and Zelda Brondstein.
When paper was introduced, the stone tablet industry also collapsed.
I think what we are seeing is a common evolution path in technology that delivers information. Right now, the devices and mechanisms that deliver the information are seen as being more valuable than the information. That is like saying a book’s paper is more valuable than the words written in the book, which was probably true centuries ago. I think this will eventually change, and Apple’s investment in iTunes and book licenses shows that they are aware that, long term, content is more important and valuable than the content delivery device.
As for the press, when they abdicated their role in providing oversight and truth in the run-up to Bush’s war in Iraq, it seemed that we really didn’t need ‘freedom of the press’ anymore.
Back to funding, maybe subscriptions didn’t pay for much in the print-media era, but with electronic publications, the potential reach makes could change that dynamic. Many former print media publications are seeing millions of more readers.
A new revenue mechanism is needed, either pennies for page views or subscriptions or both or something else. I think that publication subscriptions need to be bundled. As a casual reader of most publications, I’d gladly pay $10/month to read them all. One of my favorite ‘newspapers’ is The Guardian UK, but I don’t read it enough to justify a subscription. They have a lower-level, lower cost ‘membership’ offering but it is geared towards those who live in the UK and not for their millions of readers who live outside the UK. That is just foolish, and it shows the shortsightedness of those who create subscriptions and other revenue mechanisms.
The state of the news media in the US, broadsheet, tabloid, glossy and on-line is a total f’ing disaster. I’d be hard pressed to come up with more than a half dozen that are up to the minimum standards of the industry as it was two decades ago, and even with those all of the print editions are notably inferior to what they were at the start of that time period.
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