The Decline of the Great Newspaper Era

Well, it looks ironically like the Obama presidency might be the final kiss of death for the dominance of traditional newspapers. With the Tribune Co. having filed for bankruptcy protection, it may have seemed like the industry was doomed anyway. But the resurgence in interest in current events that accompanied the election, together with the enthusiasm and giddy blogging that has followed Barack Obama from his Senate office to the foot of the capitol, where next Tuesday he will pledge his oath of office, has not helped newspapers the way they probably hoped. From the heydays of the 1970s, when it was newspaper writers who tracked down and revealed the lurid details of Watergate, newspapers have become an accessory on a much wider and varied wardrobe of the news media.

Slate.com predicts that Obama's reluctance to follow many of the traditions of office-taking will push newspapers into a steeper decline. Even while Post and Times reporters may gush over the rise of the new President, he has refused the traditional NYT pre-inaguration interview and met with Post staff this past week more with compunction than anything else. After all, this is the hip campaigner who harnessed the power of microblogging and YouTube to weave together an incredibly influential grassroots network. He draws some of his biggest support from a demographic who doesn't even use a landline phone, let alone wait patiently for the morning newspaper delivery. These budding politicos turn instead to the web and to each other to pass along the most interesting news. And while there may be many of questionable veracity or objectivity within the legion of bloggers, at least no one can accuse so motley a crew of writers of harboring some vast conspiracy. They can't get together to agree for long enough to accomplish that.

So while time alone will tell what kind of reporters emerge at the forefront of the news media in the next four years, I suspect the newspaper giants of the past to fade even more, or to merge with the name of their buyers. Perhaps we'll see the Facebook Washington Post in not too long.