Paper Mache?

Yesterday I bought The Guardian for the first time in a long time. Perhaps about four or five months had passed since I walked into Smiths or a mini-mart to buy a periodical. I think it was the death of Michael Jackson that had me ambling along to the newsagents to buy a paper. I was curious about the media reaction to his death and how it would be commented upon.

It struck me almost immediately after reading the stories about Michael Jackson that the newspaper offered almost nothing new (although Comment was good). The main story was just a regurgitation of what everyone already knew. And how did we all know? Because we are now highly-skilled technological freaks, who log on and start searching for crap when a big story breaks and no longer wait until the next day to read about it in the paper, The Guardian et al cannot compete in paper format.

I think it was some website called TMZ who broke the news that MJ had died. This website is allegedly well known for breaking Hollywood stories into the public domain. And as everyone heard the news, probably via radio or television went straight to the interweb to find out more information. Why? Because the interweb has more opinions and resources than News 24 or Sky News do. We have to wait for those channels to tell us the news, whereas when we log onto Google and run a search we begin our journey to find our ‘own’ news. We are in a sense conducting investigative journalism, perhaps in a crude way, it could be argued. But take the example, of someone hearing breaking news on the radio, dashes to their laptop and runs a search. Finds TMZ at the top of the search rankings which discloses the details that Michael Jackson had a cardiac arrest, then this person has a blog and posts the news and the link on there. This contributes to the feeding and momentum of the story which can be updated within minutes whereas a periodical takes considerably longer. I mean Google themselves thought they were under attack because so many searches were conducted regarding the Prince of Pop.

So where does this leave the good ol’ paper. Well I think they are in a bit of trouble. Everything written on Saturday had already been covered meticulously by other interweb sources which meant all they could really do is stitch together the pieces of info that the readership already knew about. I don’t want to come over as pessimistic about the livelihood of newspapers, they all do have their websites which are updated frequently, but I feel newspapers must look at how people react when big news occurs and that repeating what has already been covered perhaps isn’t the best tact.

One thing I did like was the Comment section, and here is where I think newspapers can excel. Having people ‘in the know’ write their opinions on the matter and discuss how this affects the country, the world even. It’s that sort of tone I think newspapers need to adopt throughout their column inches, pushing journalist’s interpretations at the forefront and backed up with clear facts. They do this already, granted, because just by the nature of writing something they are expressing their opinion in some form. I just feel it should be done more.

I also accept that it is done in the supplementary material. I have noticed an increase in supplementary material in weekend papers just by the sheer weight of picking up one of those bad boys. I feel sorry for those paperboys and girls who have to deliver five copies of The Sunday Times. Having sections such as Life, Money, Cars, Technology, Mid Morning Brunch, How To Live Your Life does include an abundant amount of opinions but I just don’t think it’s topical news and that’s the lifeblood of a newspaper, surely? If I want to read about cars, I’ll just buy AutoTrader magazine, or even better visit the website.

Perhaps, I’m writing rubbish, I don’t know. But something just didn’t seem right when I spent £1.70 just to read everything I have already read elsewhere (excluding the Comment section) and for free.

In other news, I’ve started watching The West Wing and I am loving it. It makes working in an office look cool.