Before the media imploded, journalists were allowed to spend months researching in-depth stories and exposés. Today, that style of journalism is “seen as taking too long and costing too much,” former managing editor of the Chicago Tribune James Warren writes for the Atlantic. The parasitic internet is to blame, according to Warren, where “attitude and attack are often valued more than precision and truth” and content is given away for free.
The problem that Warren doesn’t focus on is that newspapers, which still “serve as daily tip sheets for other media outlets,” were caught unprepared for the rise of the internet. It’s not as though they didn’t have time to adjust, back when they were still flush with cash. Here’s a video from 1981, when downloading a paper took more than 2 hours, and cost $5.00 per hour.
