I am living in the midst of a contradiction, a conundrum. On the one hand, I love the Internet. On the other hand, I hate it. I cannot recall ever being so diametrically conflicted. The Internet makes researching a topic easy. I am just a few keystrokes away from virtually any nugget of information I desire. It makes it way easier for me to write this column. When I started the column, it was 1990. Would you believe I used to visit the reference desk at the library to research topics I wrote about? Need the owner’s manual for a 10-year-old vacuum cleaner, blender or toaster oven? No problem. Type the appliance’s brand name and model number into Google. The Internet makes it easy to determine who makes the best widget and where to find said widget at the best price. The Internet – via email – makes it easy to exchange information with friends and family. It also is a pretty darn convenient way for us here at the newspaper to receive items of interest from our readers. Just think about obituaries, for a minute. I remember the days before fax machines when funeral directors either phoned them in or drove across town to drop off a typed copy. So yeah, there’s a lot to love about the Internet. It certainly makes life easier in lots of ways. But I simultaneously dislike the Internet. I dislike what it has done to my profession. That is, everybody with a keyboard and an Internet connection is now a “journalist.” No training necessary. No editor required. Certainly no publisher is needed. Just throw any old information out there and see what sticks. Right, wrong, indifferent – who cares? It used to be that there was a premium placed on accuracy. That notion is long gone. Now the premium is on speed and sensationalism. Even network news has been sucked into the vortex of the salacious news cycle. This type of reporting has seeped into to the newsrooms of some of the greatest newspapers in the land. No more long-form, meaningful pieces. No time for that. Just last summer, the Indianapolis star cut five of its 11 photographers and the entire staff of the copy desk. Other staffers were going to cover some of the copy editing duties as part of a “newsroom reorganization.” At the time, the Star said it would dedicate more resources to “investigative, business and quality-of-life” coverage. Seems most of the resources have been aimed at the latter of those three areas because, after all, nobody has time to read about anything but “quality-of-life” issues. And by “quality of life” I mean – what trendy new restaurant just opened and where can you get the best $20 mixologist cocktail? I get what’s going on here. Big newspapers like the Star are scrambling to make money online to replace money they’ve lost in print sales. But in the quest to do so, the content suffers. In a town like Indy, the Star was always the top source of trusted information. Now, any number of publications online are fracturing the information market. I’m all for competition and free markets, but in the case of journalism, the product – news in this example – suffers immeasurable. When this information market completely fractures, who will be the watchdog? Who will be the trusted source, critical of public officials? I’m afraid the short answer is no one. The problem I am describing has been limited to large markets. So far, readers of daily newspapers in small markets seem to still understand the value of having a trusted local information source. Throughout my journalism career, spanning now four decades, I have noticed that most young people are not newspaper readers. Over time they get married, have kids, pursue a career and buy a house. It’s at that point – a certain elevated level of maturity – that they feel compelled to subscribe to the local newspaper. They want to know about what their kids’ school board is up to, how their school’s sports teams are doing and what their property tax rate is going to be. Time will tell if that trend continues, but I sense that it will. But it can only continue if newspapers provide compelling content. Local, state, national and international news, sports, comics, horoscopes, advice, letters to the editor, a full complement of editorial and op-ed columns, high-impact local advertising aimed at local consumers. All of this delivered to your door daily. Even the best websites can’t create the level of impact and variety of content that a newspaper can. If you wanted to replicate the content of this newspaper each day online, you’d have to visit dozens of websites. Or you could visit the Times-Union website, where you can see every page every day in a downloadable, searchable PDF file. (I couldn’t resist the shameless self promotion.) And while I dislike what the Internet has done to my profession, I think I dislike even more what it has done to our culture. Millions upon millions of people waste millions upon millions of hours each day reading mind-numbingly useless content on social media websites like Facebook. No need to be involved in any activities. No need to go outside and take a walk. No need for hobbies. Just surf Facebook hour after hour looking for the latest, greatest trend, clever meme or viral video. Failing that, why not make some snarky political comment on somebody else’s Facebook page? Everybody is an expert on everything. And everybody seems to think everybody else cares what their plate of lunch looks like. And, apparently, everybody does. I am fairly confident that we are producing the most sedentary, self-absorbed generation of young people in the history of mankind. These are our future leaders. How do you suppose that’s going to work out? There is some room for disagreement on the issues of the Internet destroying journalism and culture. But one thing is inarguable. The intrnet mite b the wrst thing evr 2 hapn 2 gramer.
