A few days ago, Joe Cascio wrote a blog piece about his take on bloggers and journalists. He talks about Dan Schorr’s segment on Weekend Edition on NPR last weekend and “how it’s disturbing to him [Mr. Schorr] that anyone can ‘publish’ things on the internet and no editor or staff fact-checks it or holds it to any journalistic standard.”

The role of editors for bloggers is an old discussion. Many of my professional journalism friends often talk about the importance of editors. The standard response amongst bloggers is that all of the readers of the blog are the editors and fact-checkers. I know I’ve gotten my share of recommended edits sent to me by my readers.

Joe goes on to say, “I think journalists are unnerved and defensive because one of the mediums that they’re published on now is open to anyone to publish.” This may be true of some journalists, but it seems like there is something else that is much more unnerving. Joe says, “anyone with sufficient money can print their own newspaper,” but judging by all the bankruptcies, layoffs, and newspapers shutting down, I’m not sure there are that many people with sufficient money to print their own newspaper.

I think this gets to the part that is really unnerving. Some of the best journalists in our state are getting laid off. Ken Doctor has an interesting article that really puts it into perspective. In Online-Only PI: 22.....and the Rest, Skidoo, he argues that as newspapers move online, they only need, or can only support between 10 and 15% of the newsroom staff that they had when they were a print publication. He brings the point home thus:

Let's figure there are 44,000 journalists left in US newsrooms, an up-to-date tally hard to come up with. So, if the industry magically flipped that switch tomorrow, we've got an estimate of how many online-only published could pay: 6600 journalists, and that's at the optimistic 15% number.

That’s 37,400 journalists looking for new jobs. I’d be unnerved too, but not about Joe being able to publish his own blog.

Of course, this is based on the idea of everything going online. Ken Doctor points out that even thought newspaper revenues have declined by around $11 billion dollars over the past few years, they are still bring in $36 billion+ in revenues. It also assumes that new sources of revenues don’t arise, or that a new demand for news doesn’t come along.

But there are changes coming. Everyone is looking towards hyperlocal journalism. Kirk Petersen writes about his hometown now having five competing local websites. It isn’t surprising that GateHouse and the New York Times tangled over hyperlocal portals in the Boston area.

Yet perhaps it isn’t the format that matters; newsprint or websites. At a recent discussion about newspapers and the new media in New Haven, one guest got up and said that the reason no one buys newspapers anymore is that they stopped having any real news. Journalists haven’t been asking the hard questions. Perhaps if newspapers really asked the hard questions, and told readers something they needed to know, more people would pay for the newspapers on the newsstands and more people would visit news portals online.

To address this, a website in San Francisco was set up, spot.us. The idea of Spot.Us is to fund independent investigative reporting. They are off to a great start. Meanwhile, in Boston, The New England News Forum, the Boston University College of Communication and the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute will sponsor NewsOut, asking the question, “What to do when the newsroom lights go out?”

Personally, I’m optimistic about the future of the news industry. I hope and believe that we will find funding for real investigative reporting and that will bring back interest in the news, and the good reporters will find the tips and tidbits that can be found in blogs useful as they start asking hard questions again.