The Press Today

In the article by Ivy Lee called “The Press Today”, he describes why some newspapers feel the need to merge and become one giant paper and also why some people feel that this is not the best for the people who will read these papers or even the people working for these papers. Lee says that the newspapers now are just following the business model of other successful industries by merging. By merging, cost for maintaining writers and actually producing the paper can be cut or spread out evenly so they won’t be so great. Also with consolidation in today’s news, the risk of running the same story on two different networks has diminished, because one company will own those two networks and make sure that the stories are different or geared towards a different audience. With newspapers merging, it allows a greater chance for a chain of newspapers to open up and do business. This is because with a chain of newspapers, it is possible for the revenue to be pooled which would once again take the stress of many costs off any one newspaper.

“Chain newspaper development does not mean journalistic monopoly, it means elimination of economic weaklings; fewer but more virile ownerships” (Lee)

However, there are cons of merging newspapers and forming one giant one with smaller chains. Some people feel that the bigger newspapers that have smaller chains, would act as the masters and the chains would be the slaves. A loss of individuality and personal attitude would be lost with big corporations running the newspapers. As well with journalists and editors being replaced, they will just get replaced with someone from a different newspaper within the chain and there is little maneuverability for a new editor or journalists on the rise.

The move from independent papers to more conglomerate papers is occurring more and more now and in the hands of the right people there are enormous pros, but most of the time the cons shine through because of the people in charge.