What Journalist Tom Rosenstiel Told Congress
Congressional Legislation Proposed to Save Newspaper Journalism
Oct 8, 2009
Rosenstiel used the opportunity to tell Congress that more of American life now occurs in the shadows. It's as simple - and foreboding - as that.
Maloney, who introduced the Newspaper Revitalization Act of 2009 in September, convened the committee in order to learn about the future of newspapers and the impact that the contraction in the industry might be having on the economy and democracy itself.
Newsrooms, Newspaper Journalism are What Is Lost
Tom Rosenstiel didn't have that much to say about the future for newspapers, but he did give the committee a vivid picture of how a decade of staff cuts in newsrooms has impacted all American citizens. He told the committee that there has been a steep price to pay – journalism jobs – for the revenue crisis newspapers face.
He did not spare the industry he serves for its failure to invest in and succeed as an early adapter to the Internet. "Newspapers are more than partly to blame.," he told the committee. "Like other legacy industries before them, newspapers let a generation of opportunities slip through their fingers – from E-Bay to Google, to Realtor.com to Monster.com."
While he praised the potential of the Internet for a "more compelling, more dynamic, more interactive journalism – a better journalism than print," he noted that it cannot yet replace the jobs. "Alternative news sites such as Voice of San Diego and MinnPost are exciting innovations," he said, "but the number of people working there does not yet come close to the lost numbers..."
Tom Rosenstiel, Author, and the Project for Excellence in Journalism
When people say Rosenstiel wrote the book on Journalism, it isn't a metaphor for his vast knowledge of the profession; it's just a fact. The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect, is used in countless college journalism programs, highly-respected by journalists, and highly recommended to everyone else. Rosenstiel and his colleague Bill Kovach first published the book in 200l; it was re-issued in 2007.
For the past dozen years, Rosenstiel has directed the activities of the Project for Excellence in Journalism – a program he designed. It is a multi-faceted research organization, using empirical methods to examine the performance of the media. Since 2006 Rosenstiel and PEJ have been associated with the Pew Research Center.
Congressional Committee Testimony About Newsrooms
Addressing the committee, Rosenstiel said: "The amount of civic life that occurs in the sunlight of observation by journalists is shrinking." One in five journalists working in American newsrooms in 2000 was gone by the beginnning of 2009, he told them.
Yet, said Rosensteil, newspapers still remain "the largest originating, gathering source" of the news ecosystem in the 21st century. He said that in every American community he has studied over 26 years, the newspaper in the town had more reporters and editors than any other news organization – usually more than all other news groups combined.
Then he addressed the myth, he said, that the news no longer comes from newspapers. It does, said Rosenstiel, even though "only about 54% of Americans say they regularly read print newspapers.....A good deal of what is carried on radio, television, cable and wire services comes from newspaper newsrooms," he said. "These media then disseminate it to broader audiences."
Praise for Reporters
But it is a diminished news product that is being circulated, and he made that clear. A diminishing number of city councils, zoning boards and utility commissions are being covered on any regular basis. Similarly, state houses, governor's mansions, and even world capitols, he said, may lack attention from even a single lone reporter.
He closed his testimony by saying that it is not only the loss of investigative reporting that he most regrets. "But perhaps even more so the reporters who show up week after week, sit in the front row and bear witness..." Their presence, he said, is a statement to those in power, on behalf of the rest of us.
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