It was in 2004 when ‘the guys in pajamas’ brought down CBS News and Dan Rather. We were all amazed that amateurs could have this kind of media power. The monopoly of a ‘trapped audience’ was failing, as the audience started to do a better job than the professionals. And the professionals didn’t like it. 

According to Rupert Murdoch, in a recent speech, the public’s trust in the news media has pretty much evaporated and the business won’t recover until they earn it back.

“It used to be that a handful of editors could decide what was news–and what was not. They acted as sort of demigods. If they ran a story, it became news. If they ignored an event, it never happened,” Murdoch said.  – See CNET story – ”Murdoch to media: You dug yourself a huge hole.”

And there used to be fat profits in the newspaper business, but no no more,  even AP announced layoffs and the New York Times ad revenues are down 17.2%.

This is another way:

Since the profits in the news business are disappearing anyway, why not choose to not make any?

The Voice of San Diego was started, not by ‘guys in pajamas,’ but professional journalists, who have left the old media for one reason or another. It’s web-based, set up as a nonprofit, and it’s getting noticed by taking on the stories the old media didn’t cover but the public needed.

“VoiceofSanDiego grew out of a string of spectacular municipal scandals. City councilmen took bribes from a strip club owner, a mishandled pension fund drove the city to the brink of bankruptcy and city officials illegally covered up the crisis, to name a few.

A semiretired local businessman, Buzz Woolley, watched the parade of revelations, fraud charges and criminal convictions, seething with frustration. He was particularly incensed that the pension debacle had developed over several years, more or less in plain sight, but had received little news coverage.” – Read the full story in the New York Times — “Web Sites That Dig for News Rise as Watchdogs.”

Several other web-based, nonprofit, news services have started up in places like Minneapolis, Seattle and St. Louis. These kinds of organizations are often funded by wealthy benefactors or family trusts. And they will most likely benefit from the professional staff layoffs in the old media.

Go with the flow whenever you can. But watch out for those guys in their pajamas.