Will it be sad to see venerable operations like the Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, and Boston Globe bite the dust? Of course. It won't be an occasion to gloat or celebrate. But the industry's woes are self-inflicted, and its continued arrogance and superiority complex continue to blind its executives from potential solutions in a world where quite frankly, they are no longer quite relevant.
Kos' front-page stemwinder borrows a page from Shakespeare's Mark Antony, who famously came to bury Caesar, not to praise him. But how serious are Markos and the other blog triumphalists about their loudly-stated belief in the utter dispensability of the dead-tree press? I propose to find out. One week from today, on Thursday, April 16, 2009, let Daily Kos experience A Day Without Newspapers.
Markos, take the pledge: "On April 16, 2009, from 12:00 am to 11:59 pm PDT, neither I nor any other front-pager will publish any item that cites a major national or metropolitan daily newspaper as a source, nor will we cite any blog or other outlet that uses a newspaper as a source."
Surely this will not be a difficult pledge to uphold. As Markos himself said:
What about news from DC? Who needs the newspapers when we've got adequate to great coverage from CQ, Politico, TPM, Washington Independent, HuffPo, and the Hill?
I note with some concern that most, if not all, of the above-mentioned Web-based media outlets are currently running front-page items that draw on reporting being done by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Houston Chronicle, the Orlando Sentinel, and numerous other irrelevant sources, but surely that is just a technicality. After all:
Newspapers like to see themselves as "essential to democracy" or some other such bullshit, but they've long been part of a much broader media landscape, in which broadcast and the internet have become the most efficient delivery mechanisms.
As inessential to democracy as newspapers are, surely they're even less essential to a site like Daily Kos that moves at the speed of thought and leaves all your old 20th-century preconceptions behind, right? So okay then: Pledge to us, Markos, that on Thursday, April 16, you and the front-pagers will use only broadcast outlets, Internet-only publications, and (if absolutely necessary) original reporting as sources for any and all items. Be careful, though: if Josh Marshall draws on reporting from the New York Times when posting an item, you can't use it! If Keith Olbermann uses a Washington Post article as a peg for his top story, it's no good! If TMZ.com relies on the New York Post for a celeb sighting, throw it out!
Surely there is no better way to prove the validity of Markos' thesis and demonstrate the utopian wonderworld we'll all be living in once the last "dinosaurs" are dead and buried than by giving us A Day Without Newspapers. Demand that Markos take the pledge today!