Coming Downtown: Bumblebee-Costumed Minimum-Wage City Hosts
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So the word on the street is that come July 1, an out-of-state company will hire a dozen or so city hosts, dress them up like bumblebees and have them patrol Pacific Ave. daily. Seriously.
Their mission is to thwart illegal, annoying and disruptive activity on the strip in hopes of rejuvenating the bottom line for local businesses.
Their price tag is a jaw-dropping $130,000, which will be paid out to Service Group Inc., a company based in Pennsylvania, by the Downtown Management Corp.
Euphemistically known as “city hosts,” these ridiculously dressed employees — they will wear yellow polos and black pants “in such a way that is clearly visible and attractively displayed” (direct quote from the company’s website) — will patrol downtown and report loiterers and panhandlers to the police.
And if precedent has any bearing, this idealistically Orwellian plot to scrub our city clean of what the local businesses deem as “undesirables” will flop. And flop big time.
The idea of a city host program is by no means a new one. In 1994, the Downtown Association funded a similar and cheaper program that within a few months succumbed to failure. Some of their problems included high employee turnover because of low wages, disorganization and ineffectiveness.
Earlier this year, the city jumped in the mix by passing a set of controversial ordinances that required jail time for repeat loitering and panhandling offenders, increased fines for the same charges and implemented laughable restrictions on the time someone could sit on a bench downtown. These changes were overwhelmingly supported by local businesses. Obviously, they feel they’ve failed.
Even more recently, the bus station downtown began playing classical music through cheap, plastic speakers in front of the station in hopes of spurning panhandling. I guess it was infeasible for the city to install speakers for the length of the strip that would give justice to Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.” Or maybe local businesses owners just don’t dig the Romantics.
Worse yet, Service Group Inc. hasn’t proven they’re worth a dime. The company has run several similar programs in cities like San Jose, Denver and Camden, N.J. Most of us know what San Jose looks like — for those locals claiming downtown isn’t even worth seeing here in Santa Cruz, I suggest you take a brisk walk through downtown San Jose at night. I also suggest you bring mace, knives and a gun. As for Camden, N.J., one research firm named Camden the second most dangerous city in America last year. That dubious award came three years after Service Group Inc. was hired to reduce crime in the city.
Most importantly, what are we supposed to make of this price tag? As most people realize by now, we’re in the midst of a severe economic crisis. The state of California is about to hijack over a million dollars from the city of Santa Cruz. On top of that, the city is facing the largest deficit since Santa Cruz’s birth as an American town in 1876. There are hundreds of other programs and organizations that are more deserving of $130,000 in this climate. Obviously, the Downtown Management Corp., which is funded by local business owners, can do what it wants with its money. But it seems overly simplistic and irrational to assume that dumping well over $100,000 into a Orwellian snitch program can really reignite sales downtown.
If we really want the homeless off the streets of downtown, and that’s what this program really intends to do, then we need to invest that $130,000 in cheap housing, medical and psychiatric care and job reeducation programs.
Increasing the police force — something many people have suggested — and hiring goons in bumblebee outfits will do nothing to reduce loitering and panhandling, and certainly will not lead to an explosion of sales downtown in this economic environment.
I’m afraid that in hopes of making a few extra dollars, the city and local business owners are forgetting what Santa Cruz is about. We’re here together in this tiny speck on the map, whether we like it or not, so let’s make it work together.
Rather than invest huge sums of cash in programs that are destined to fail or at best bandaid an aging wound, the Downtown Management Corp. should invest in a working cure.
Click here to read more of Daniel’s writing at his blog.
The Design + Innovation Center’s Skateboard Panel event at NextSpace
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Design is about people, and how they become inspired to create and refine products that are innovative, simpler, more efficient, greener, and – in the case of skateboards – just plain fun. The Santa Cruz Design + Innovation Center recently held a skateboard panel discussion in NextSpace that underlined how creative thinking, energy, and community involvement led to the development of our world class skateboard design and manufacturing industry.
NextSpace, for those of you not yet familiar with it, is the radical new coworking space on the corner of Cooper and Pacific that is becoming the preferred base for creative/technology startups in the Santa Cruz area. Take a tour, and you’ll see software developers, architects, writers, graphic and product designers, computer animators, intellectual property lawyers, nonprofits, entrepreneurs, and innovators working side by side in the friendly, busy, rising-tide-floats-all-boats spirit that’s often called coopetition.
Fifty people - some NextSpace members, many not – crowded into the second floor café space on May 28th to hear a panel of local skateboard personalities give their varied insights into the ideas, the events, the design, and the people that have made this Santa Cruz industry into a world leader.
The panel was made up of Tim Piumarta, the Director of R+D at NHS, who gave the audience a fascinating history of of the skateboard wheel from back in the ball bearing days to the development of the sealed bearing and how it changed skateboarding forever. Connor Welles, Hard Goods Development Coordinator at NHS, who talked about the process of getting skateboard products manufactured and working with product managers. Don Bostick, who founded the World Cup of Skateboard, talked about the problems and rewards of running competitions and events. Erik Florio, the CEO of Whagaa, discussed the early days of wanting to do apps before the iPhone and how his app went to number one for a month on itunes. Judi Oyama, a longtime skateboarder and designer, gave an illustrated talk about the use of graphics in the industry. And Danny Keith spoke about his Grind for Hunger non-profit, running a retail skate business, his love for skating and how it has driven his life. There was a clear underlying tone of passion for the sport and the skateboard community in everyone’s talks.
This enthusiasm and commitment is a common feature of Design Center events. The basis for its existence is that Santa Cruz has, over the last twenty years, become home to a large, world-class group of creative professionals in the fields of design, technology, software development, research, and entrepreneurship. Creative professionals need and want to live in inspiring surroundings like Santa Cruz but can’t always afford to. However, successful creative professionals can. As a result Santa Cruz, being the most attractive and interesting community within commuting distance of Silicon Valley, has attracted a disproportionate number of top creative professionals. But many commute to the Valley for work, and those who run businesses in town find most of their clients and professional connections come from the Valley. So the paradoxical situation arose that a major regional creative center was unaware of itself as such.
Enter the Design Center, two years ago. Its purpose was first to make Santa Cruz aware of itself as a major design and innovation center, and then to spread that awareness across the region, the country, and indeed the world. And this is what is happening. A series of local events and exhibitions, centered around design and technology, are not only forging new links across professional boundaries but making local creative professionals aware of the breadth and depth of design skills available, in many cases, just a few blocks away. Find more on upcoming events, local designers, and what’s going on in the Santa Cruz design community at the Design Center’s web site www.designsc.org. Join us!
Finally, the Design Center wishes to thank all the sponsors of the skateboard panel event: Santa Cruz Skateboard, Santa Cruz Skate Shop, NextSpace, Fringe, Khiro Skateboard Products and Parachute Design. We also thank our Board, under the chairmanship of Darrin Caddes, for their guidance, and the members and volunteers of the Santa Cruz Design + Innovation Center for their support and enthusiasm.
The Truth About West Side Video
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Walking into West Side Video transports you back to a time when the phrase “renting a movie” actually meant “renting a 
VHS tape.” A time before Blockbuster and Hollywood Video made their publicly traded land grab for every video-renting neighborhood in America. A time before Netflix and Redbox completely removed the human element from renting a movie. In this bygone era, the person behind the counter at your locally owned and operated video store didn’t just have an encyclopedic knowledge of all things cinema, they have a knack at personalizing a recommendation just for you by asking a couple of quick questions.
Now things have changed. Our movies tend not to be rented from other people, but rather delivered by a mailmain who doesn’t know the difference between a Woody Allen and an Ed Wood, or dispensed by a vending machine in SafeWay that hasn’t even been programmed to say “Have a nice day” in a creepy cyborg voice.
But the beloved video store culture of yesteryear still exists, I tell you, and you need look no further than West Side Video. The video store sits in the corner of a parking lot on Mission street, tucked away behind Sabieng thai restuarant where it has stood for 23 years.
The first thing you’ll notice, when you enter through the glass doors, is wall after wall, and shelf after shelf, of VHS tapes available for rent. In fact, I have to admit, the first time I visited West Side Video I didn’t think that they had DVDs in stock. It was pretty shocking, and slightly traumatizing. But I soon got over the trauma, and found my way to their DVD section (just to the right of the entrance) and was pleasantly surprised. They have a lot of extras you won’t find at box video stores, or at video vending machines, like a local pick section consisting entirely of movies that played at the “Nickelodeon.” Being a huge fan of independent films, this was a natural draw for me and I instantly recognized a couple movies I had seen at the Nick, and some I had missed.
What I love most about West Side Video is the passion of the owner, Ashlyn Adams. Cinema just gushes out of her, and it’s impossible to talk to her for longer than a minute without having a handful of directors to check out whom you’ve never heard of, a handful of movies to watch that you haven’t gotten to yet but MUST SEE, and updates on all the recent releases.
Ashlyn grew up watching TV and movies, and started working in West Side Video a few years ago. When the previous owners, a couple who both currently work for Google, decided to close down West Side Video, Ashlyn was heartbroken. She offered to buy it. The rest is history.
To Ashlyn’s credit, she totally keeps with the whole “Keep Santa Cruz Weird” vibe. For example, there is a pirate ship hidden somewhere in the movie store. In the event of a power outage (Ashlyn tells me it happens once or twice a year), there is an immediate scavenger hunt for the pirate ship. She’ll even equip you with a flashlight. If you find the pirate ship, a booty of free movie rentals awaits.
Today, West Side Video stands a testament not only to one woman’s passion for movies, but for a community’s passion for a good video store. Leaving I’m struck with an overwhelming awareness of what corporate franchises do to movie store culture: they spray Windex all over it and rip the heart out.
Me, I’m heading to a video store where I can get in depth reviews, critiques, and suggestions from a living cinema-pedia. I’m going where everyone knows your name, and co-workers come in on their days off to hang out and watch movies.
I’m going to West Side Video, or somewhere close.
A Closer Look at the Wages of City Employees, Part 1
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Santa Cruz Police Patrol Officer Jose-Luis Hernandez was paid $92,372 in 2008 in regular salary, and booked an additional $94,145 in overtime pay, to bring his total pay to $186,520.
If you think that this is too much, or that there is little justification in nearly $100,000 in overtime pay to a patrol officer when the county faces a staggering multi-million dollar deficit, you aren’t alone. City employee salary data, which was recently released on the Sentinel’s website, is causing a stir of controversy and public outcry over how much some employees of the city are making.
The data, which is made available to the public at city hall in addition to the Sentinel’s website (for all you cournalists out there), does raise some interesting questions that will be the subject of an ongoing investigation here at Santa Cruz’s citizen journal outfit.
Adam Frank, a recent graduate of the University of California Santa Cruz and Santa Cruz resident, feels that “the city is already over-policed and that we are unjustifiably spending too much on our police department.” He may have a point. Police patrol officers Guillermo Azua, Carter Jones, and Patrick Bayani were paid $51,622.55, $49,184.27, and $40,097.46 in overtime respectively. Sixty two additional Police Patrol Officers were paid a total of more than $848,139 in overtime alone. The total overtime pay to Police Patrol Officers was 1.08 million. And that’s just overtime.
When asked whether he feels investing in our law enforcement so heavily is a wise decision, Frank responded only that, “In the last year, Santa Cruz has seen record numbers of stabbings. If we’re paying them a million dollars to work overtime, you’d think they’d at least be able to stop all the stabbings going down.”
And then there are long time residents like Jason Mays who feel that we can’t spend enough on police. “We need to spend as much money on law enforcement as possible. I’ve lived in Santa Cruz for 20 years and not once have I seen it this bad. The gangs are running this town, killing each other, harassing residents, and we need all the police we can get. Have you been downtown on pacific past midnight on a friday night? It’s a nightmare and quite honestly, I’m terrified. ”
Mays also has a valid point, and the conflicting viewpoints of Frank and Mays illustrate a deeper divide running through Santa Cruz. Many residents feel that we are living in a police state, and to them a figure like $1.08 million in overtime pay to our PD will precipitate feelings of utter shock and horror.
However, on the other half of the divide are residents who see many positive benefits to a greater police presence, and these residents are likely to rest easy knowing that a cool million has been spent keeping the police on the streets as much as possible.
Perhaps the real question is whether or not our police department is understaffed. With the same million spent on overtime, 13 additional officers could be brought onto the force and get paid salaries of $75,000 per year.
This is no doubt a topic worthy of much greater exploration. Of course, questions about city employees’ pay is not limited only to the police department. For example, one data point of interest that catches the eye whilst reviewing the salary information is that Ryan Coonerty earned in 2008 $16,915.96 more than Mayor Cynthia Mathews and likewise more than his next highest paid council member, Mike Rotkin. Coonerty earned slightly over $42,000 to sit on the city council in 2008. By contrast, Ed Porter, Emily Reilly, Lynn Robinson and Tony Madrigal all were paid between $22,000 and $24,000 for their service as council members.
So this is part 1, an introduction if you will, to a multi-part series on salaries we’re paying our citie’s employees, the services being provided in exchange for said salaries, and whether you, the townspeople, think it’s responsible use of the city’s money. Please exercise your voice and have your say in the comments.
The Domino Effect
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DOES THE DEATH OF PRINT JOURNALISM MEAN THE END OF SMALL BUSINESS?
Earlier this week, my father passed on a poignant article asking the same question that’s been on the minds of thousands of small business owners across the country — Does the death of the newspaper mean the death of small business?
The stipulation being that without local dailies local businesses don’t have a place to advertise, announce job openings or spotlight their community involvement.
No doubt it’s a real threat. Newspapers in their current incarnation are fast becoming an ephemeral memory of the bygone days. Two-daily cities are dropping to one and many economists predict it won’t be long before a major city is paperless. Even more papers are now in talks to ditch the physical product for an online-only version.
Small business owners argue that without a local daily they won’t be able to reach their clients. They won’t be able to update the community on sales, the most recent addition to their menu or a community fundraiser.
But they’re wrong. Rather than a death sentence, the fall of the print paper is actually a blessing in disguise if small businesses are willing to make the necessary adjustments to the Internet.
Over 75 percent of Americans use the Internet, according to a recent poll by the PEW Internet & American Life Project. I’d bet a lot of money that not that many people are reading their local daily across the country.
Here in Santa Cruz, the Sentinel’s circulation has dropped below 25,000 countywide. That’s in a county of 250,000. I’ll be generous with the statistics. Let’s say only half of the county is using the Internet. That still means there are 100,000 more people in Santa Cruz County on the Internet than reading the Sentinel. Yikes!
If anything, small businesses will benefit by switching to the Internet. They’ll reach a larger and broader base (I know my little brother isn’t reading the paper, but he’s spending hours on the Internet every week). And it’s cheaper. An ad that costs thousands of dollars in the print edition of the Sentinel costs a fraction of that it in their online edition.
As for posting job openings, Craigslist, Monster and Santacruzjobs.com have all proven their value. They’re cheaper than posting in print classifieds and you can vet potential candidates electronically, which saves time and allows you to quickly eliminate erroneous applications. Again, using the Internet is easier, quicker and cheaper.
And there’s no reason that the Internet can’t provide a platform to organize and mobilize the community. Facebook, Myspace and other social networking tools have more than proven their usefulness around the globe. And it’s not like journalism is going away. If anything, it’s exploding. New startups are appearing across the country.
Non-profits, citizen journalism publications like the Cournalist and traditional companies who’ve made the move to the Internet will all still exist. They will still write about local events, companies and fundraisers. And they’re all going to be looking for advertising revenue in one way or another.
And opportunities for broader audiences and novel ways of reaching them will continue to expand on the Internet. No longer will advertising have to be one dimensional. Direct interaction between businesses and their consumers will soon be the norm. And it’s for the better. If a customer doesn’t like your ad or thinks it’s ineffective, he or she will have the ability to tell you immediately. No more guessing games for small business owners. They’ll be able to know exactly how many people their ads get in front of, and they’ll be able to follow it live.
Rather than write a requiem for small businesses, we should embrace the powerful opportunities the Internet provides. I sense the real issue is whether small businesses are willing to become more creative in their efforts to reach a broader community, because the tools for reaching them are here and they aren’t going anywhere.
Read more of Daniel Wilkinson’s work at his blog.
In a Last Ditch Effort, The Seattle PI Goes Online Only
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Last week, forced with the ultimatum of closing for good or going online only with a dramatically reduced staff, the Seattle Post Intelligencer made an announcement. They were going online only, and March 17th was to be their final print issue.
Here is a video they put together to commemorate the sad day:
The Post Intelligencer has been serving Seattle with daily news since 1863. Since 2000 however, the newspaper has been losing money every year. All I can think of when I think of the Seattle PI is an article written by Clay Shirky that continues to inspire me every time I read it. Intimate knowledge and intelligent analysis oozes from every sentence in his article entitled Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable. Here, Shirky cites a number of reasons why newspapers failed to adequately prepare for the future. I’ll briefly summarize them:
- “The ability to share content online has grown.
- Walled gardens have proven unpopular.
- Digital advertising has reduced inefficiencies, and therefore profits.
- Dislike of micropayments have prevented widespread use.
- People have resisted being educated to act against their own desires, and not share content.
- Old habits of advertisers and readers have not transfered online.
- Ferocious litigation has proven inadequate to constrain massive, sustained copyright infringement.
- Hardware and software vendors do not regard copyright holders as allies, nor do they regard customers as enemies.
- Suing people who love something so much they want to share it really pisses them off.
- The competition-deflecting effects of printing cost got destroyed by the internet, where everyone pays for the infrastructure, and then everyone gets to use it. And when Wal-Mart, and the local Maytag dealer, and the law firm hiring a secretary, and that kid down the block selling his bike, were all able to use that infrastructure to get out of their old relationship with the newspaper publisher, they did.”
Now, there is a wealth of knowledge in Clay’s historical and timeless synopsis of our current situation. And I believe he is right when he states that “what we need now is journalism” and that “for the next few decades, journalism will be made up of overlapping special cases. Many of these models will rely on amateurs as researchers and writers. Many of these models will rely on sponsorship or grants or endowments instead of revenues. Many of these models will rely on excitable 14 year olds distributing the results. Many of these models will fail. No one experiment is going to replace what we are now losing with the demise of news on paper, but over time, the collection of new experiments that do work might give us the journalism we need.”
We are living through a revolution as we speak. The old way of getting our hard-hitting, local information is breaking. Salaries and jobs for investigative journalists are becoming non-existant under all current models, and this is why many of the emerging models rely on amateurs as researchers and writers. However, it would be a mistake to think that a passionate amateur with a dedication to the facts and a drive to produce the best investigative works possible can not produce something on par with your paid journalist. It would also be erroneous to assume that most amateurs currently have this drive and dedication. After all, a paycheck is a hell of a motivator.
Something will emerge from all this. If people value information, local news, and investigation -which I think they do, then something will emerge. Yes, Clay is right that many if not most newspapers will break before the new model emerges -but a new model will emerge. There will always be attention and interest in local news, for it effects everyone at their core level: where they live. Local news is the one thing you can talk about with literally anyone else who lives in your town.
Local news isn’t going anywhere. It may however pack its bags for a bit, take a vacation and return to us sun-tanned if out of shape and barely recognizable as the same person who left.
The real moral of this story is that it’s time for us to start putting our heads together, and working together, to make sure local news lives on in Santa Cruz as a strong and vibrant tradition. Do not respond to citizen journalists with hate, or disrespect, or hostility. These are the people giving up their time so that when the day does come, and when the only daily newspaper in town closes its doors (god forbid), there will be something, some model, some source for news which may not be perfect, but at least it will exist. And by the mere fact of its existence, there will be potential to improve it.
Requiem for a 149-Year-Old Newspaper
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WELCOME TO THE REALITIES OF 2009
In 1859 much of Colorado still belonged to the Kansas Territory. Denver had yet to be incorporated. My great-great-grandfather had recently escaped Ireland’s horrifying potato famine and immigrated to the south side of Chicago.
In this backdrop, the Rocky Mountain News was born after being dragged hundreds of miles on an oxcart from Nebraska.
That first issue of the Rocky came at the beginning of a golden age in journalism. Over the next century, national and local newspapers popped up all over the map. Advertisers overwhelmed by the prospect of reaching huge audiences dumped billions of dollars into the news industry.
Bada bing, bada boom. Or so it seemed.
Fast forward 149 years to 2009, and the game has changed remarkably.
The rise of the Internet has connected anyone who has a computer and a decent Internet connection to the rest of the globe. People who had once seemed worlds away can be reached with the touch of a button. Even my grandfather can be caught chatting to friends and relatives on instant messenger.
It is in this backdrop that the Rocky Mountain News died last Friday. The Rocky, a staple of Colorado news and commentary for the last 159 years, closed its doors for the final time in response to a nose dive in advertising revenue, much of it lost to the Internet and a strapped economy.
Almost 230 reporters, editors and other newsroom employees will lose their jobs. A tragedy to say the least.
But the Rocky was only one of many news organizations nationally that have been hammered over the last few years by declining advertising revenues. All newspapers face similar fates in the coming months. Still the urgency of the situation has been cast off again and again.
Will it be a year before newspapers start closing up? Columnists and pundits ask week after week. Two years?
Rather than bask in the final rays of a setting industry, newspapers need to learn from the Rocky’s fate. Now. The time to leisurely discuss the future of the news business has come and gone. The news industry must invest in cournalism, news blogs, non-profit papers and the Internet before newsgathering as we know it disappears forever.
That means local papers like the Sentinel need to reach out to their readers and find out exactly what they want from their local daily.
That means big-city papers need to push neighborhood blogs as supplements to their regular papers, as the New York Times has recently done. They require little maintenance and the public can fill out their content.
It means newspapers need to refine their online presence and create a product that’s worth paying for if they think readers are going to dish out money for what has traditionally been free on the web.
The sad truth is that many papers will probably die even if every daily across the country begins renovating their century-old models tomorrow. But the damage will be minuscule compared to what will happen if newspapers turn a cold shoulder to innovation.
“Damn it! The Rocky’s journalists deserved a better fate,” wrote Dusty Saunders, a reporter and columnist for the Rocky for the last 54 years, in his final column on Friday.
What he left unsaid was that the fate of the Rocky is the fate of an archaic news industry that refuses to ditch the past and push into the future. Not so long ago, many feared the radio would kill the news industry. Instead, journalists embraced radio and began taking advantage of it. Similarly, they reacted to the rise of the television with video news programs.
As the Internet enters its second decade, it’s time for the news business to innovate once again. It needs to embrace the opportunities the Internet provides, not ridicule and ignore them.
Click here to read more of Daniel’s writing at his blog.
SF Chronicle packing its bags…
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This was an interesting week for three reasons. First, the San Francisco Chronicle, who has brought the Bay Area news for 144 years, announced it may be closing up shop. After losing more than three million dollars per month for the last year, Hearst Corp says it’s either time to close up, or sell. Prospects for a sale aren’t exactly great, for in these days there’s not much upside to buying a newspaper. This announcement came just days after Philadelphia Newspapers Inc., operator of the two largest Philladelphia dailies, filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.
The second reason this was an interesting week was because Rosie Spinks, journalist for City on a Hill Press, published an article about the Cournalist. She was shrewd enough to recognize the fact that a significant shift in daily local news is now occuring in Santa Cruz, and we’re at the cusp of it. So, she sat down with us to see what our plans were to maintain the inheritance.
Overall Spinks did a good job in her coverage, but I do have a few points of contention, starting with her opening statement. “Being a cournalist is a full time job,” is how Spinks starts her article. And yet already, right here, she has lost the idea of being a Cournalist. Being a Cournalist is not a full time job. In fact, every cournalist we have is either a full-time student or full-time employee with a your run of the mill dayjob. Being a “Journalist” is a full time job, but being a “Cournalist” is neither full time, nor is it a job. Being a Cournalist is about finding spare time to research and write about something you care about, and share it with the community. Cournalists do this with as much frequency as they feel like, and are rewarded not fiscally but by the audience and readership their contributions are given.
Second, Spinks states that “The site is based on citizen journalism, the idea that any informed citizen who is engaged in the community can and should have a platform for their voice to be heard — no journalism training required.” While technically this is true, that you don’t need training to publish on the Cournalist, I feel like she puts off the wrong idea. This isn’t amateur hour, and Daniel and myself informally train our Cournalists over a coffe, a burrito or a beer. We teach them about getting multiple sources, recording quotes, identifying personal bias and source bias, and structuring their pieces effectively. Training might not be required, but is an ongoing supplement to all cournalists, and is not optional.
Aside from those few points, Spinks’ was right on.
Moving on to the third thing that made this an interesting week, I must relate a presentation Daniel and myself gave at Cabrillo college today, to a class of journalism students. As the editors of the only true community focused Citizen Journal in Santa Cruz, Daniel and myself take it upon ourselves to talk to local students. It’s part of our job.
And why shouldn’t it be? Journalism students are the future of the field. They are in the preparatory stages to launching their careers in journalism and based on this fact you’d think that they would then be interested in how the landscape of journalism is changing. After all, once they’re done spending thousands of dollars for a degree in journalism, the logical thing to do would be to try to get a job in journalism, right? You’d think interest in this emerging piece of the pie would be high.
But this is not what I saw today. After presenting to a class of twenty or so journalism students, not a single one of them had a question. We briefly highlighted the problem, that newspapers are going out of business and that something needs to fill their shoes. We elaborated on the worse-case scenario of a community out of touch with itself. We talked about how we’re hoping to change this, and the success we’ve had so far. And then we fielded questions. Only there weren’t any. Not one single question.
It pains me to walk into a room of journalism students, amidst the collapse of the entire newspaper industry, to talk about what’s coming next and not one person has a question.
I told Spinks that the Sentinel, the Good Times, and the Metro are not our competitors. I told her that apathy is our only competitor, and that we lose when people just don’t care. She quotes me on this at the end of her article, and it is something I believe with all my heart. The only obstacle, the only barrier to citizen journalism, is apathy. Furthermore I always expected to run into apathy on this journey. but I wasn’t prepared to face it coming from college-level journalism students.
Because it’s going to take young, energetic people who actually care in order to make citizen journalism work (and when I say “work” I mean work up to a standard that it will be considered an acceptable replacement to the dying newspaper). Unfortunately, it seems that young energetic people who actually care about local news and communities enough to do something are in short supply.
Newspapers are dying and if college students don’t care, I see a bad moon on the rise.
Media Dinosaurs Continue Death Cry
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ANOTHER NEWSPAPER FAILS TO COME TO GRIPS WITH THE END OF TRADITIONAL MEDIA
Some people just never learn.
In an editorial this past week, the Chicago Sun-Times touted its unraveling of Sen. Roland Burris’s shadowy fundraising for ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich as proof that traditional newspapers will endure.
The facts report a much different story. Newspapers in their current form are dangerously close to extinction. A perfect storm of paralyzed housing and car markets and a volatile economy have destroyed advertising revenue for papers across the country. The wild success of Internet companies like Ebay and Craigslist have only contributed to the mess. Newspaper ad revenue fell 14 percent in the first half of 2008, according to the Newspaper Association of America. Future outlooks aren’t so optimistic.
In response to this disaster, papers have been forced into massive editorial layoffs, required furloughs for those remaining and other cutbacks. Many cities that have traditionally housed two dailies now have one. Some of these cities fear they’ll soon have zero.
Here in Santa Cruz, the storm has been just as visible over the last few years. The Sentinel has scrapped its printing press, relocated to Scotts Valley and slashed its editorial staff. Because of these cutbacks, Editor Don Miller recently found himself trumpeting the paper’s first investigative piece “in a few years.”
Still, the Chicago Sun-Times thought it reasonable to attack the emergence of alternative news sources like nonprofit papers, blogs and citizen journals.
“No army of bloggers, no TV or radio station, no nonprofit journalism collective, no foundation-supported task force of political and government reporters will ever do the job so well,” they wrote.
Maybe so. But that same army of “bloggers in pajamas” — as the paper later referred to them —broke news that the head of NASA had lied on his resume, banking lobbyists were trying to payoff members of Congress and the police chief in San Diego was lying about crime statistics to cover up the city’s failing police department.
In reality, these fresh news sources are necessary to fill a growing void. That’s not to say professional journalists have no role in the future reporting of news. To the contrary, trained writers are essential in deciphering the nuances of the country’s daily news. But there’s no question that as the void grows we’ll need new and innovative ways to cover the news.
The Chicago Sun-Times and other media dinosaurs must face these facts. The age of the traditional newspaper is coming to an end, and the dawn of a more diversified media is at hand. The papers who accept this fact will survive and the ones who don’t will be lamenting the good ole’ years over unemployment.
Ironically, the Chicago Sun-Times said it best when it wrote, “Competition brings out the best in everybody.” Surely they’re not afraid of a little competition from the people who were previously confined to reading the papers.
In reality, I sense these graying dinosaurs are finally coming to grips with the fact that they might one day be the “bloggers in pajamas,” they so dubiously referred too. My advice to the editors of the Chicago Sun-Times: Best hit the local Wal-Mart for a new onesie before they’ve sold out!
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FROM THE EDITORS » |
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Writing Contest Reminder PVUSD Will Announce Cutbacks, Layoffs Tonight Writing Contest! Experiments In Print Capitola Call to Service Meet-up