Newspapers’ Civil Wars

By Gary Goldhammer
Below the Fold

Newspapers in Los Angeles, like newspapers in most other large U.S. cities, once measured themselves against their competition. Getting a “scoop” was the journalistic equivalent of a knockout in boxing. And news – at least within the newsroom – was sport as much as anything else. Being first mattered as much as being right, and if you couldn’t be sure of the latter then the former would almost always suffice.

Newspapers were at war with each other. They fought with massive presses and ink barrels. They enlisted young recruits hungry for battle and invested time and resources to get to the top and then stay there.

Today, for the most part, the competition wars are over. Cities like Los Angeles are now one-newspaper towns. Today newspapers fight not for supremacy, but for survival. They are still at war – but this time, the fighting is internal.

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