A book review by Sir Harold Evans, former editor of The London Times, of “Losing The News; The Future of the News That Feeds Democracy” describes the views of author Alex Jones as follows: “The most valuable element in journalism is often enough not an episode that occurred today, yesterday or, horrors, the day before. It’s the creation of a new awareness provided by either months of investigation or relentlessly regular coverage.”
The article continues: “In the end, Jones pins his hopes on newspapers’ developing separate online businesses, with the owners of quality papers settling for lower than historic profit margins and renouncing slash-and-burn strategies. He’s surely right about that. Destroying the editorial value of an editorial product could be commended only in an asylum.”
WATCHDOG: A local example of “a new awareness provided by either months of investigation or relentlessly regular coverage” is NewsLanc’s Convention Center series.
Let’s take hope that the publisher and editors of The Lancaster Newspapers will read this book.
