Losing the News: The Future of the News That Feeds Democracy (Institutions of American Democracy),   ISBN:9780195181234

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Each day I walk from my lonesome hermitage across the border to freedom in Mexico, to buy the daily El Diario published in the Ciudad Juarez, and read it over guacamole and lettuce.

This newspaper each day is as substantial, with more sections than any Sunday edition in the USA. On Sundays, in fact, it is twice as big.

And each day I find international news agencies such as Agence France Presse and Reuters giving the news, nothing but the news, and all of the news, from around the world.

Even the daily Hollywood section makes that look interesting. How does that poor Brad Pitt put up with it all? And that beard?

Today, Veteran's Day, I read in the Mexican daily a long article by a writer for El Diario, Alberto Ponce de Leon, examining in great detail the fact that one in four veterans in the USA are homeless. Did that make the news today in the USA? Citing credible sources such as the National Coalition of the Homeless and the Department of Defense, and visits to Fort Bliss, and an interview with a homeless vet El Paso, Ponce de Leon finds that at some time 400,000 are found homeless during the year. Almost half of them are Vietnam era vets, but also from the Second World War through Iraq. Two thirds served our country for three years or more, with a third in combat zones.

These statistics speak for themselves; the professional and verifiable manner in which they are nakedly reported does far more to expose the truth, the news, than any overheated rhetoric from Fox or Rupert Murdoch or Rev. Moon's Washington Times.

So why can't we have such professionalism here among our own journalists, where we require the truth to keep our republic well informed and our democracy true?

Doesn't sell advertising. Heat, not light, is required to drive profits.

The New York Times, our supposed journal of record, has as majority owner now the Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, who holds it almost as a charity, as a point of pride, not as a profit making enterprise. The Boston Globe, its final remaining competition in the NorthEast, is now a franchise of the Times and going under, whereas my dad as a boy sold newspapers morning and evening on Boston's mean streets, when the number of newspapers were without number.

Now they can barely survive, and go under without outside support.

What's going on?
READ THIS BOOK!

Let me share one more item from my local daily paper. On page 12A in El Diario's ample Opinion section (which normally runs well over a dozen pages) dated October 15, 2009 we find an editorial written by Attorney Sergio Conde Varela, a gentleman who in his photo appears pushing seventy years old and who writes with great insight and bite, entitled The Tsunami Against the Press.

Atty. Conde writes that in number 168 of Le Monde Diplomatique there is an article signed by Ignacio Ramonet, former director of that magazine, which reports that no less than 120 daily newspapers have fallen into bankruptcy in the USA. The article points out that The Times and the Independent of London, the Paris Le Monde, Spain's El Pais, and other such well-known newspapers are in bankruptcy. Loss of advertising is blamed in the article.

The Christian Science Monitor has ceased its paper edition. The Chicago tribune, the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle have fallen into bankruptcy, and Murdoch's Wall Street Journal is losing two and a half billion euros (imagine how much that is in REAL money!).

Attorney Conde Varela concludes his article praising El Diario de Ciudad Juarez, which I also do. I have found it true and reliable, and a great joy to read, and, as Conde points out in others, I make a fierce effort to get it every day, and as Conde writes others do, I save its articles, such as this excellent editorial which I have now saved a month. In fact about every few months, I find I need to clear out my tiny pickup truck cab (single wide) and the kitchen floor and other places of all the newspaper which has accumulated, and lamenting each leaf, I consign them to the trash, lamenting strongly still losing that all important article, e.g., on the latest length and color of Brad Pitt's new beard.

A newspaper is the backbone of democracy. Look at Tom Paine. Look at Ben Franklin. Look at what very little remains, and weep.

Through my literary tears, as an act of civil resistance, I volunteer at my local US paper as a photojournalist for these past years and have often sent by e-mail from Mexico a handful of articles a day, dozens of articles a week, ever under the proud, brave and mighty motto: Often Published; Never Paid! Sunday night in fact I went to the scene of a shooting to take photos and do interviews, and Tuesday they were published.

Yesterday my editor there left me urgent e-mails to call him, and I had to come to Mexico just to get a phone connection to his offices thirty miles from the border. He said he wanted to start paying me free-lance. I begged he not turn my greatest joy into a job. My long passed grandfather the photojournalist for the Boston Record-American might understand, and smile upon me for adding my own little grain of sand keeping American journalism alive.

READ THIS BOOK, and please, please, please, Buy a newspaper TODAY!

This award winning study is the best book I have received through amazon, and vine, the most important book any of us can read, and it is the best written book because it was written by a true newspaperman.

Much has described it here. Please let me add this as well, my personal testimony, my personal plea for our newspapers, the backbone of any real democracy.

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By now you have probably heard numerous reports of the decline of the U.S. newspaper industry, often citing competition with the web as the main challenge. With so many news sources available in today's world, it is easy to ask what newspapers offer that is unique. In Losing the News, Jones, a professional journalist and a member of a generational newspaper-owning family, answers definitively that it is what he terms the "iron core" of news: objective, in-depth, original reporting on hard news topics.

Jones goes on the describe in detail the historic and economic conditions that led to newspapers, rather than tv or radio, becoming the major source of his "iron core" news, and he explains the current threats to the industry. While he does deal with competition from bloggers and web aggregators such as Google News, Jones' discussion is much more wide-ranging and nuanced than a paper vs. electronic debate. He talks about a number of factors that are undermining traditional newspapers, including court decisions that make investigative reporting more risky, short-sighted business decisions by newspaper owners, and increased cynicism and mistrust from news consumers. He concludes with a section on possible strategies to save the iron core, many of them incorporating a better use of web-based reporting.

In the end, I found that I learned a great deal of interesting information not only about the current news crisis, but also about the history and business of news-making. Jones manages to pack a great deal of information and background into a fairly short (~220 page) book. His passion for newspapers and his commitment to the civic-duty role of news-providers come through strongly. Even when I didn't agree with his opinions, I found his discussion thoughtful, interesting, and even-handed. I highly recommend Losing the News for anyone interested in media and public policy issues.

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Forty-years ago when this reviewer was a student at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of Missouri, they still taught basic news reporting starting with the "Who, What, When, Where," and "How Much" and sometimes "Why" if that could easily be accurately determined. In much of today's news that basic material is not even covered. Some of the Ivy League Journalism Schools were already teaching opinion news. The later seem to won the battle.
Since there are already more than thirty reviews of this book ahead of this one, I'll simply say that Alex S. Jones knows about what he is reporting in this book. He's one of those journalists with "printers ink in his veins" as we used to describe good journalists with strong ethics.
The author's worry that the so-called "Iron Core News" that has been the mainstay of American Newspaper Journalism is rapidly being pushed aside by entertainment, sports and opinion features being passed off as important news. Naturally the author also points out how economic factors are speeding the demise of most newspapers and he carefully examines those factors as well as the effects of television, cable and the Internet that are also slamming the newspaper business.
The one neglected factor barely mentioned in this book is the effects of radio news and "Talk Radio" on the newspaper business. With 24/7 news being broadcast over the radio waves, the typical newspaper is made up of yesterday's (or even older) news. Radio news, which many people wrongly dismiss as yesterday's technology, is anything but dead. That media also enjoys the advantage of people being able to listen to it all day or night while still going about their usual work and play routines. For many listeners the radio is like being plugged into the world's news services. They feel like "Walter Cronkite's old show `You are There.'" And many talk shows are based on newspaper "Iron Core News." Some of the better talk show hosts spend hours discussing those news stories in great detail with both expert guests and callers contributing to those detailed discussions. A news story on television might last a minute or two while both NPR and Conservative Radio Talk Shows might spend an hour or more dissecting the same news story and even updating the news story in the following days and weeks. The actual reporter of the news story may be invited to participate in the discussion. Even if some of the callers aren't very enlightening and are very bias one way or the other, it doesn't take a genius to see that an hour spent discussing, parsing and questioning a news story in great detail probably provides the listeners with much more background information for a better understanding of the topic.
Otherwise, as a former journalist, it's hard for this reviewer not to agree with the author's conclusions. This is a good read.

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Take a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who is third generation in a newspaper-owning family and throw in journalism generally in a state of complete upheaval and you have a recipe for either a strong book with a lot of insights or a lot of nostalgic hand-wringing. In this case, though you get a pretty strong balance of both.
In what is overall a strongly reasoned and well thought through presentation, Jones touches on many themes and issues. Prevalent throughout however, is also a steady diet of self-admitted denial that Newspaper journalism as it has been in exercised in the past is over and the future at this time is uncertain.

Jones weaves a consistent metaphor from the very beginning embedding the book upon the concept that there is within all journalistic output, an iron core of factual news which informs the populace and is the bedrock of democracy. Jones sees this as the "iron core". Not surprisingly, as he analyzes the source of this "iron core" he equates it more with newspaper journalism that from any other source, and it is the rapid diminishing of newspaper journalism that has him most alarmed about where the news will come in the future that provides democracy with the fundamental knowledge to maintain an informed electorate.

Upon this platform, Jones precedes to explain how he understands the first amendment to have functioned in the past and currently. There is a good deal of insight here that injects a fair measure of realism and avoids a simple statement of faith based upon an overdeveloped sense of nostalgia. Jones is realistic and points out the progression of the concept to where it rests today.

Further, Jones is realistic about the state of journalism today. In addition to the core of objective news, he recognizes that there are other elements of news which wrap around the core if you will. In particular there is advocacy news in which predetermined positions are advances based upon the editorial decisions to filter the news to fit the desired position. This is often in the form of editorial comment within a newspaper and in televised news . Entertainment exists within this context as well. Again the major premise of the book sees the growth of these elements as revenue producing enticements that are maintaining while serious news is neglected because the basic economic model that supports it has shifted significantly. He laments the diminishing of real, hard core news which was supported in the past through a model of advertising support. With the advent of the internet and newspaper advertising and circulation diminishing, and especially exacerbated by the recent downturn in the economy is leading to the consolidation of outright closing of newspapers. Where, Jones laments, will the iron core of news come from? Further, generational changes are coming and this newer generation is not wired to receive and examine news in the same way. Real substance; real digging, seems destined to become a rare commodity which may stay in the domain of those educated and rich enough to realize its value and pay for it, while the general populace lags behind and democracy suffers.

After a meandering course through these issues, and Jones memories he provides his insights as to how things may play out and that things, while serious and unknown at this time as to how they will finally resolve, are not so very different than pivotal changes in the past. The model may change, but the news must continue to play its pivotal role in democracy itself.

While the resolution is not in itself so satisfactory and despite Jones' disclaimers that he's not simply indulging in remorse over the "good old days" the value in this book is not so much in the destination as in the journey. The book is a good primer for those interested in the journalism industry and where it's been.

I enjoyed it and can recommend it.

4 stars.

Bart Breen

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If you believe, as I do, that a free, strong and just plain GOOD, base of news reporting is essential for democracy than you likely weep at the state of the newspaper industry. The once mighty media titans are slowly falling like dominoes, leaving in their place local news broadcasts (which basically boil down to, "What sex offenders are living near YOU? Watch us at 10!"), blogs (and even the good oness, like mine [blatant plug!], aren't good enough), and cable news (which basically boils down to, "Obama is a Kenyan-born communist fascist!"). The future of news; indeed of democracy itself, appears very grim.

Writer Alex S Jones' latest book, "Losing the News", is a blow-by-blow account of exactly how we got into this situation, what the past was like and what the future may be like. He disects the story in an interesting and entertaining fashion, while managing to be informative and educational. Everything a good journalist should be.

In fact, there's only one thing that surprised me in this book, and that's that he left out what I believe to be a significant bit of technology: the Kindle, and other e-readers. While I can't remember the last time I sat and read a print newspaper, I've been known to read newspapers on the Kindle, and have a subscription to Time and Newsweek on there.

Other than that omission, this is a good read and worth your time and effort.