OBITUARY: Idaho and National News Media Experience Death Rattle

The Death Knell Tolled 40 Years Ago

I’ve been reading a lot of handwringing from people working in American newsrooms lately.  They’re beginning to realize they’re irrelevant.  It’s not like they didn’t see this coming.  The revolution started in the 1980s with an explosion of television options, and then the Internet was set loose in the 1990s and choices became almost infinite. 

Late in the 90s, I was working as a TV News Director.  The Job allowed me to travel annually to the Radio and Television News Directors Association convention.  There was a growing recognition that technology was speeding at a pace beyond our ability to adapt.  Walking back to our hotel one night, one of my peers lamented that we weren’t prepared for how people would soon consume news.  Imagine landing on a pristine shore and attempting to envision what the place will look like in 25 years when thousands of other ships arrive.  Six months later he was working in an office at a community college. 

I stayed for a time, but my ships all went to the bottom.  All of my former three TV stations no longer have newsrooms.   

Print Media is Buried

The experience in the newspaper industry looks worse. I was in a meeting last summer when our regional manager summarized the Idaho Statesman's plight. A newspaper that once occupied an entire campus is relegated to renting a room above a radio station. 

Locally, our daily newspaper ceased printing all but a couple of days a week.  Albeit, it held out longer than I expected.  Warren Buffett dumped his stock in the parent company.  He called it a bad bet.  I believe many people still think the newsroom is packed, and a guy periodically shouts, “Stop the presses!”  When our police chief retired (and later changed his mind) the paper had no idea.  There’s nobody on staff available to cover city government. 

We survive at my office because we have people at four radio stations contributing daily to our websites.  Our sister stations in Boise share content as well.  Still, there were five full-time reporters at KLIX in the 1980s.  No one is designated a full-time reporter today. 

A New Creature Emerges

We’re experiencing evolution and not extinction. 

Too many in newsrooms refuse to adapt.  They whine you aren’t being served by newer alternatives.  The begging for your attention ignores history.  What we call modern news media is a relatively recent arrival.  It came about in the 20^th Century.  As our country grew, it was mainly served by opinion journals.  The newspaper in my hometown was founded as a mouthpiece for the young Republican Party.  The paper ceased to exist in 2022.  It had broken with the GOP only in the late 1980s.  Newsrooms operated for many years as monopolies and never realized it was an open market.  

All of these technological and cultural challenges are a handful, but there’s an elephant in the room being missed by many editors and their woke minions. Staff can’t cover a story beyond their woke prism. 

Reporters Sold Their Souls

I saw a column from the conservative writer Michael Barone.  He started his career as decidedly more moderate.  Journalists are unable to confront their bad behavior in the age of Trump.  They bought the smokescreen on the Hunter Biden laptop.  They bought the smokescreen on Russian collusion.  They bought the smokescreen on COVID.  Now they refuse to acknowledge they made massive mistakes and sold their souls. 

It’s not much better at the local level.  While local TV and newspaper reporters are clinging to their jobs, many still project as if they’re the smartest person who walks into any room.  They need to get out more.  Your fellow news types and the liberal professors you telephone for comments aren’t representative of the real Idaho.  A few months ago a newspaper columnist railed against the owner of a saloon in Eagle because the owner promotes traditional values.  What would be the response if he hosted Drag Queens reading to kids?

There’s an old beer joint on Highway 30 between Buhl and Hagerman.  Do you want to experience the real Idaho?  Drop in sometime.  Whatever you do, don’t order a Cabernet! 

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