Changes in the Newspaper Industry

This evening's guest on C-Span's Q & A interview program was Clark Hoyt, who recently ended his stint as the public editor of the New York Times. The public editor is the title of the ombudsman, whose job it is to investigate the practices of the newspaper when controversies arise. As Hoyt explained, controversy is an everyday matter for the public editor because someone is always mad about what the New York Times reporters write about.

Clark Hoyt has worked for newspapers since the 1960s. His employer until 2006 was the Knight Ridder company, which went out of business that same year as a result of the changing economics of newspapers. He readily admits that there is a major sense of loss in the journalism profession as newspapers cut back or shut down altogether. For Hoyt, the world of the print newspaper is over. The future of journalism lies in using and gaining revenue from the new digital platforms offered by the World Wide Web. He clearly states that this is an ongoing and painful process for the profession, but there are no alternatives to adapting to the digital information environment.

Another subject discussed in the interview is the current state of the news media. Clark Hoyt lamented the way the proliferation of news sources has permitted people to live in their own worlds. Rather than taking in multiple points of view on a subject or event and ponder which one has the most merit, people can now choose to only follow news sources that conform to their points of view and beliefs. This is just one step in the process of the breakdown, as Hoyt views its, of set of shared facts and values that should be at the heart of any informed discussion of current events and politics.

The most refreshing aspect of this interview for me is that Hoyt did not predict gloom and doom for the newspaper industry. He acknowledged the reality of a changing information environment that the old newspaper business must learn how to exploit for its financial benefit as well as for the good of information consumers. Hoyt described this moment in time as an exciting one for the newspaper world for this reason. Change can be a positive experience.