¿Podrá Google matar a los diarios?

Balzac decía que si la prensa no existiera, no habría que inventarla. Eso es precisamente el gran cuestionamiento que divide a los puristas más duros que aseguran que los diarios seguirán siendo necesarios, a pesar de las "advertencias" de las audiencias. Y radicales que todos los días inventan un nuevo asesino para la prensa. La mayoría coincide que el más despiadado de los criminales saldrá de internet. Y esta columna, publicada en el San Francisco Chronicle, se pregunta sí éste será Google. Pero hay un tema de fondo, que precisamente fue la discusión central en una conferencia realizada en Stanford hace unas semanas y que tenía como cuestión fundamental "el porqué tenemos que pagar por periodismo". Por qué pagar por TV o diarios si internet -y sitios como Yahoo y Google- entregan todo (o casi todo) lo que uno necesita en información y en forma gratuita e incluso segmentada. Entonces, por qué invertir en otros medios. El derecho a propiedad es una de las cuestiones que forman parte de esta discusión. Y la calidad de los contenidos, otra. Google señala que ellos sólo administran links (es decir, no hacen periodismo), por lo que los problemas que genere -tener acogotados a los principales diarios de Estados Unidos- no es importante. Otra duda que nace de esta interrogante es qué hacer con las audiencias. ¿La democratización generada por internet puede ser puesta en juego hoy y limitar sus principales cualidades? Probablemente ni los puristas ni los radicales tengan la respuesta. O nadie.

Por Neil Henry
San francisco Chronicle/
The Chronicle's announcement earlier this month that 100 newsroom jobs will be slashed in the coming weeks in the face of mounting financial woes represents just the latest chapter in a tragic story of traditional journalism's decline.

Reportedly losing an estimated $1 million a week, the paper's owner, the Hearst Corp., concluded it had no recourse but to trim costs by laying off reporters, editors and other skilled professionals, or offering buyouts to the most seasoned journalists in order to induce them to leave. The cuts reportedly will amount to a quarter of The Chronicle's editorial staff.
In the age of "new" media, this rollback in "old" media may be among the most drastic in recent memory, but it is nothing new to the public.

Indeed, across the country newspapers have suffered enormous financial losses over the past decade, with far fewer professionals today covering the news locally, nationally and internationally as a result of the industry's contraction.

The factors behind this shrinkage are sadly familiar: The rise of the Internet has produced sharp declines in traditional advertising revenues in the printed press. Free online advertising competitors such as Craigslist.com have sharply undermined classified advertising as a traditional source of revenue. While many newspapers have attempted mightily to forge a presence on the Web -- including The Chronicle, whose terrific sfgate.com is among the top 10 most trafficked news sites in America -- revenue from online advertising is paltry compared to that from traditional print sources. As a result, newspapers such as The Chronicle must make staff cuts to survive -- and increasingly it is highly skilled professional journalists committed to seeking the truth and reporting it, independently and without fear or favor, who must go.
The average citizen may not realize how severely the public's access to important news, gathered according to high standards, may be threatened by these bottom line trade-offs.

When journalists' jobs are eliminated, especially as many as The Chronicle intends, the product is inevitably less than it was. The fact is there will be nothing on YouTube, or in the blogosphere, or anywhere else on the Web to effectively replace the valuable work of those professionals.
Fewer resources will be available to investigate stories as nationally significant as the BALCO scandal, for example; fewer professionals to doggedly uncover shady financial practices at the University of California, forcing top officials to publicly acknowledge their mistakes and work to fix them; fewer journalists to cover local city halls, courts and schools, reporting community news that the public often takes for granted -- and which other media, including local television and radio outlets, rely upon to set their own news priorities.

There certainly won't be any less news or fewer scandals to report, mind you: Only fewer trained watchdogs on hand to do the hard work of hunting, finding and reporting it.