The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Miniter Nails It, Right Off the Bat

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The Spectacle Blog

Miniter Nails It, Right Off the Bat

By Robert Stacy McCain on 3.9.09 @ 8:35AM

In the e-mail press release announcing his hiring as Vice President of Opinion at The Washington Times, Richard Miniter is quoted thus:

"The Internet has transformed the environment for opinion writing," Mr. Miniter said. "Every blogger has an opinion and the market for pure opinion is saturated. We are going to be different. Readers want editorials, op-eds and columns based on reporting and news. We expect our editorial writers to act like reporters and then add insight and perspective to explain what it all means. And we will respond at blog speed."

I've been saying the same thing for years. The privileged positions within the newspaper industry enjoyed by op-ed columnists like David Brooks have been rendered obsolete by the rise of the blogosphere. Were there any justice in the world, the New York Times would have axed overpaid opinionators like Brooks and Maureen Dowd rather than eviscerating its news-reporting operation.

Good to see that finally someone in the newspaper business gets it.

View all comments (3) | Leave a comment

Ric Locke| 3.9.09 @ 11:46AM

It's a matter of corporate incentive having a synergistic effect on the newsroom pecking order.

Opinion writers have always been at the top of the status heap. And opinion is cheap -- no matter how much you pay a Brooks or a Dowd, you won't get close to what it costs to keep a good reporter in the field, what with transportation costs, meals on expense account, and all the other myriad expenses a person traveling ends up paying. Triple that or worse for something like Iraq.

So the corporate owners of the news organizations have emphasized opinion over reporting, simply for cost-saving, and the news organizations went along with it because it fit perfectly with their existing social arrangements.

Trouble is -- it's said that opinions are like a*holes, everybody's got one. That's too weak, as the Internet demonstrates. Opinions are like turds, any a*hole can squeeze one out. The market won't stand the price; the supply is near-infinite. News organizations that expect to survive need to get back to reporting, real, on-the-scene reporting, or they have nothing to sell.

Regards,
Ric