Journalism Issues

Michael Massing, a contributing editor to The Columbia Journalism Review, has written the first of a two-part series in the New York Review of Books entitled, "The End of News." In it, he chronicles the rise of right-wing columnists, and then bloggers. He describes the threat to mainstream newspapers posed by the Internet, and how they are responding, and recites concern about whether the Internet will produce enough revenues to pay for the "watchdog" reporting that the best U.S. newspapers are known for producing. Finally, in this first installment, he suggest that how newspapers respond to declining young readership and circulation will well determine whether journalism, as it has been practiced in post-World War II era, will endure.