"For the first time in the history of the republic, the delivery of news and information is not happening in the same space as democracy." Unless somebody can devise a sustainable geographic model for journalism, he argued, the United States needs to figure out "how to structure democracy in a different way not rooted in geography." How that might happen, he acknowledged, he has no idea. Alberto Ibarguen was publisher of the Miami Herald and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Venezuela in the 1960's.
Alberto Ibargüen Says Journalism Losing its Geographic Roots
Knight CEO Says Journalism Losing its Geographic Roots
Some weeks, you can track the evolution of journalism by topic: Micropayments, endowments, contributions. This week, you can map it by geography: Death in Denver and birth in Miami.
As more than 200 staffers of the Rocky Mountain News got the painful news that their paper would close Friday, a similarly sized group at the We Media conference was listening to Knight Foundation CEO Alberto Ibargüen describe some of what's emerging to replace the fading established media.
But he began with a discussion of what's being lost, and pegged it to geography: "For the first time in the history of the republic, the delivery of news and information is not happening in the same space as democracy."
Unless somebody can devise a sustainable geographic model for journalism, he argued, the United States needs to figure out "how to structure democracy in a different way not rooted in geography."
How that might happen, he acknowledged, he has no idea.
Not that geography has been completely abandoned as an organizing principle for news. Among the finalists for $25,000 investment grants at the conference was newsdesk.org, a start-up focused on "important but overlooked news from around the world" with plans to expand from San Francisco to other communities. And David Westphal reported on OJR Thursday that emerging local news sites "are hanging tough."
But as the decline of the old accelerates -- with possible shut-downs of papers in Seattle and San Francisco and bankruptcies in Philadelphia, Chicago and Minneapolis -- it's clear that many emerging forms of media are more focused on breaking new ground than filling old gaps.
If participation in We Media is any indication, media innovation is increasingly led by entrepreneurs outside established media. Conference co-leader Dale Peskin said the percentage of participants from news organizations has dropped from about 75 percent five years ago to about 10 percent this week. That trend tracks with differences I noticed from the We Media I attended two years ago.
Ibargüen said the Knight Foundation is examining how changes to tax law might ease the transition from the now crumbling model of public ownership of news companies to arrangements that might enable sale of local news outfits to community organizations. As he quickly noted, however, "that doesn't solve the revenue issue" of sustaining the operation once the new ownership has been established.
Hallway conversations are among the most valuable aspects of gatherings like this, and I was struck by a quick one I had with George Brock of The Times of London. Business models have a way of hanging on long after they're broken, he pointed out, except when dire economic circumstances bring things to a boil.
As a believer in the "creative destruction" theories of economist Joseph Schumpeter, Brock argues that "the journalism vacuum will be filled."
