…and I said nothing because I wasn’t a newspaper.

Well, the trouble that the newspapers are in today could be visited upon the television stations tomorrow.  In Saturday’s New York Times, several network executives mull over this possibility, including NBC’s Jeff Zucker:

Jeff Zucker, the chief of NBC Universal, has been more pessimistic, saying, “broadcast television is in a time of tremendous transition, and if we don’t attempt to change the model now, we could be in danger of becoming the automobile industry or the newspaper industry.”

On the local level, this could mean similar trouble for the local affiliates who also depend so much on advertising that is being seen by fewer and fewer eyeballs.  Not traditionally thought of as the paragon of investigative news outlets, any cuts to the already spartan budgets of the local television news operations could continue to erode our ability to keep a close eye on the comings and goings of municipal and county governments throughout the region.  (One of my colleagues made the point that we - and when I say we, I refer to the region’s entire media establishment - are already missing a lot of what’s going on in suburban governments which are often just as corrupt or mismanaged as the city - if not more.)

Solutions?

It’s clear that what the internet has wrought, the internet should also fix.  Since the internet traffics in text, audio and video, it will be the place for all of the media companies in this region, including the public media, to find a solution.  Your recommended reading when it comes to other bloggers who have been putting a lot of thought into this include Mark Potts at Recovering Journalist who focuses on newspapers and Michael Rosenblum who has written extensively about what television news operations - both local and national - need to do.

I’m an optimist.  I don’t doubt that there will be a period of about 5-7 years after this region’s newspapers finally fold that things will get pretty bad.  Corruption, greed, malfeasance of all kind from government, business and crime bosses will make life pretty miserable for a while.  But as residents of this region get shaken out of their comfort zone and start to really hunt for information - news - about what’s going on with their government or with major economic powerhouses, others will step in to fill the void.  Such operations will be small, lean, web-based and intensely focused initially and they will require this population to be a little more connected than they are at present.  But over time they will mature and bring local news to a point where it is relevant, fascinating, useful and - most importantly - empowering.

And they will figure out how to make enough money to sustain themselves so we’re not in this situation for again for a long time, if ever.

Ok.  So what’s your vision for the future of local news?  Discuss in the comments.