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is a young computer whiz who saves
the day by taking his newspaper online
to break the big story.
How is that for metaphor?
Blogging About the Past
For me, Darnton’s newspaper murder
mystery came along at just the right
time. Some months back, foreseeing
the massive layoffs coming to my
newspaper, The Spokesman-Review in
Spokane, Washington, I posted on my
“News is a Conversation” blog an essay
titled “Still a Newspaperman.” 1
I wrote it late one night after a
particularly dismal day at the office
when it appeared as if all of my efforts
to stave off budgetary disaster
had come to nothing. It was intended
as a quiet meditation on the sort of
newspapering I knew when I was first
coming into the business in the early
1970’s. Of course my reminiscence was
rose-colored. The newspaper world
of 1973 had its own problems, from
a less rigorous ethical framework to
blatant sexism to dull and lifeless
stenographic reporting.
But it was a good time, too.
Newspaper journalism was vital to
our democratic systems, to our communities.
Newspaper journalists were
(mostly) credible, even respected. And
newsrooms were fun places. Smoke-
filled, loud, profane, busy. Newspapering
was fun even when the journalism
was hard, maybe most fun when it
was hardest.
Darnton remembers those days. His
fictional New York Globe is a throwback
in almost every way except for the rank
incompetence that seems to be killing
it. The characters are stereotypes,
certainly. But their like, for good or
ill, could, in my early years, be found
in every American newsroom.
In Darnton’s book, investigative
reporter Jude Hurley solves the murder
mystery with the help of a young
computer whiz who may be the Globe’s
new owner. I would guess that Darnton
saw this as an optimistic conclusion,
6 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008
the marriage of shoe-leather newspapering
and online publishing saving
both the Globe and the day.
That marriage may yet prove successful.
Newspapers, as with the Globe,
will continue, almost certainly, in some
form. But in real life it’s an imperfect
ending. As newsroom after newsroom
eviscerates its staff, losing veteran
journalists with their connections to
an important past, the generations-old
foundation of American newspapering
erodes further, perhaps beyond the
point of no return. And it’s not just
institutional and craft memory that
is being lost.
We’re losing a sense of our purpose,
our mission, our values. Those of us
older than a certain age learned those
things from our mentors, the great
generation of journalists who walked
up the hill from train stations all over
the country in 1945 and ’46 to take
jobs at newspapers big and small. But
this generation’s mentors are leaving
before their job is done, and those
who are left, young and old, are so
busy fighting for their professional
lives—while trying to stay ahead of
light-speed technological change—they
have little time to think of journalism
beyond today’s deadline.
I now think that was why there
was a palpable sadness permeating
my elegy to the past.
Response to my blog posting was
astonishing. I received hundreds of
e-mails, letters, phone calls, and blog
comments from all over the world. It’s
fair to say the majority came from
journalists of my generation who saw
something of their own experiences
in my writing. But I also heard from
younger journalists who argued it was
time for the oldsters to move on, to
leave the field for those who know more
about computers, mobile devices, social
networking, and other journalistic tools
of the 21st century. Some suggested I
was living in the past and, by staying
there, I had become irrelevant to our
industry’s future.
It was a fascinating debate, with
1 Smith’s July 31, 2008 blog entry can be read at www.stillanewspaperman.
com/2008/08/12/the-original-still-a-newspaperman-thread/.
the sides defined by generation and
experience.
After all of that, I remain convinced
that our profession is losing something,
something important to our craft and
the citizens we are called to serve. It
is not a disservice to our future to
understand that.
At the end of Darnton’s book, the
surviving Globe journalists gather in
a bar (where else?) to talk about the
paper’s future. With the veterans is
Clive, the Web-savvy whiz kid who now
owns the paper. As Darnton describes
it, the lively gathering degenerates
into “a round of inebriated, hopelessly
optimistic proposals.”
Let’s get back to our roots, get
back to the basics. Afflict the
comfortable and comfort the
afflicted. That’s the motto.
Let’s be who we are. Let’s stop
trying to be everything to everybody
and just tell it straight.
Let’s get back to hard news, do
hard-hitting investigations.
Let’s swagger a little. Let’s be
brave again.
Let’s dump the ombudsman!
By Christ, print’s not dead
yet!
Jude watched Clive’s face. At
one point, he heard him mutter,
almost to himself, “Some of that,
yes. But not all. We can’t go back.
The Internet is here to stay and
we have to adjust to it.”
We have no choice in the matter. We
must adjust to young Clive’s world.
But don’t tell me I can’t cry a bit
over the loss of mine. �
Steven A. Smith was, until October
1st, 2008, editor of The Spokesman-
Review in Spokane, Washington.
His blog is stillanewspaperman.com.
Another article by Smith—about his
engagement of younger reporters in
transforming the newsroom— is on
page 32.