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Pulitzer Prize winner says consumers need to realize what they are losing when newspapers can no longer operate. (2:00)
 

Full interview. (11:51)
 

Tavis: Alex Jones is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who covered the press for "The New York Times" for nearly a decade. He's now the director of Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy. His critically acclaimed new book is called "Losing the News: The Future of the News that Feeds Democracy." He joins us tonight from Boston. Mr. Jones, nice to have you on the program, sir.

Alex Jones: Thank you, Tavis. I'm glad to be here.

Tavis: I want to go right to the subtitle of this book before I get into the heart of the matter. The subtitle, "The Future of the News that Feeds Democracy -" Why that distinction?

Jones: I think the point I'm trying to make is that the news that feeds democracy is not the same thing as the conversation that feeds democracy. The conversation is fed by the news - the hard news, the reported news, the factual news. What I think we're moving toward is a world in which there will be vast conversation but not much hard news that will feed that conversation with a factual basis so it can be an informed conversation.

Tavis: Is news these days, to your mind, leading the conversation or following the conversation?

Jones: I think it does both. I think it's a symbiotic relationship. There's news first, then there's conversation; more news, more conversation. And sometimes, that conversation prompts the direction of which the - that the news takes. But without the news, reported news - what I'm talking about, the reported news done by professional journalists, then what we have is a lot of conversation which can be hot air if it's not rooted in some kind of factual basis.

Tavis: So the news as we know it, reported by professional journalists, is now in trouble why?

Jones: I think that the way I look at it is this. About 85 percent of that news that I'm talking about, that news of politics, policy, investigative reporting, that kind of thing, is done by newspapers. Newspapers may not be the mechanism whereby people get the news in terms of how it's delivered. They may get it on television; they may get it even on blog sites or that kind of thing.

But the generation of that news still comes, and has historically come mostly, overwhelmingly, in fact, from newspapers. And newspapers, because of the digital revolution and also because, of course, of the economic situation they're in, have been cutting back on the people and the quality of the people who do that news there, not devoting the resources to it they should, in my belief. And I think that's something that if it continues could hurt us badly as a society.

Tavis: Forgive my naiveté - why the cutbacks in this particular area?

Jones: Well, what's happened is that the digital world has basically taken away some of the staple advertising revenues that made it possible for newspapers to be able to fund this kind of news. I think the fact is that people bought newspapers for all kinds of reasons. They bought them for the classified ads, for the comics, for the crossword puzzle, for the sports, as well as the news, but they got the whole package.

The point is that the people who bought it for the crossword puzzle were essentially subsidizing the people who wanted it for the news, because the expense part of the news operation was headed in that direction.

With the economy in the tank and with advertising now going increasingly online and away from newspapers, that money that was used for that kind of reporting is drying up.

Tavis: So why can't, then, these institutions, newspapers specifically, assign those professional, top-line reporters to covering stories and disseminating that information via cyberspace as opposed to the printed page?

Jones: They will, and they are, and I think that that's going to be, of course, part of the future. They're going to be online. But the problem is that newspaper advertising in its printed form generates vastly more revenue than advertising online. They've never been able yet to crack the economic model that would allow them to generate the advertising revenues online that will allow them to sustain the kind of journalism that I think that we all expect.

Tavis: If everybody - help me understand this, then. If everybody, we're told, is going to the Internet to get news and everything else, why then have papers not been able to maximize profit on the Internet if they're putting basically the same stories online that they're putting in print?

Jones: Well, because what's online is that and vast, vast, vast other things as well. People online can go wherever they want to go. They don't have to go to the newspaper to get sports news. They don't have to go to the newspaper to get gossip. They don't even have to go to the newspaper to get a crossword puzzle.

The Web is a vast place to go. Right now, newspapers are trying to find their markets online but they haven't been able to do so and they also have the problem that the Web tends to want to be free, and newspapers have not been able to find a way, most of them, to charge the people who want to read the news but are not willing to pay for it.

Tavis: So then what you're basically saying to me is if there's no money in news reporting, there will be no news reporting?

Jones: You got it, exactly. And I think the problem is finding a new economic model that will support what I think newspapers historically have taken as their public service mission, which is to provide this kind of news. But without the money, it ain't going to happen.

Tavis: God rest his soul, but Don Hewitt was given a lot of kudos when he passed just days ago for what he did do for television news and television reporting, but there are a lot of people who felt that Don Hewitt was the person to blame for pushing the envelope off the table where news divisions could, in fact, make money.

Whether you want to put the finger on Hewitt or whoever, where do we get to this point, where did this process begin, of news having to make news rather than Americans just needing to be informed for being informed's sake?

Jones: Well, bear in mind that what television does is deliver news. It doesn't necessarily generate that much news. "60 Minutes," which Don Hewitt invented, and I credit Don Hewitt - I think he created one of the best, maybe the best, single television news program ever. But he also made it clear to CBS that they could make a lot of money.

When that happens, then I think the television culture is we don't care how you make the money; all we want to do is to make the money. We want to get the eyeballs there. And the problem is that look, we're all human beings. People would rather spend their time and devote their eyeballs on things that are fun and pleasurable than doing things like watching programs on policy questions.

But they also want somebody to be watching the store. They want somebody to be out there doing the watchdog role. That's the problem. They may not support it with their eyeballs but they want somebody to do it. It's got to make economic sense or it won't be done, unfortunately.

That's what this book is about, trying to get at how to solve that problem and really what's at stake when this is happening to the newspaper industry, because they are the ones who generate almost all of that kind of news.

Tavis: So for the consumer, what is at stake?

Jones: I would say as far as the consumer is concerned, all you have to do is imagine what will happen at your state government and your city government if nobody's there looking over the shoulder of these people and holding them to account, if no investigative reporting is being done. If nobody is there checking into what the mayor's doing, what the governor's doing, what the senators are doing, that's what's happening in America now.

A lot of these places that I think everybody knows need to be watched very carefully are not being watched. We know what happens then.

Tavis: I'm not going to hold my breath on this, Alex Jones, but is it possible that, to borrow a phrase, some years ago, I want my MTV - that the American people could rise up and say, "I want my news?"

Jones: I think they will if they understand what they're losing, and I think that there's a real opportunity for newspapers that are going - they've cut themselves to the bone. They were operated fat and happy during the 1980s and '90s. This economic has made them lean and mean. When the economy improves they're going to have an opportunity, at least a chance, I believe, to rebuild these audience, to reconnect with people, and to provide that journalism in a way that will make economic sense.

I hope I'm not just being pie-in-the-sky optimistic. I don't think I am. But I can tell you this: The people who are interested in this, I would ask that they buy a copy or buy a subscription to a newspaper and then write the editor and say, "I'm a paying customer of yours and I want you to provide news. I want you to give me news. If you want my business, that's what I need." I think people would be shocked at how effective that actually might be, because I believe people would pay attention.

Tavis: I'm glad you went there, because I wanted to ask, as I will now, how much of this drama, this desperation, is of the newsmakers - I shouldn't say newsmakers, but the persons who deliver the news, newspapers and television news, how much of this is of their own creation?

And what I mean to suggest by that is if they, those who deliver the news to us, somewhere got off the track and whether you want to call it the tabloidization of news, but they started giving us stuff that really ain't, pardon my English, hard news, can't we blame them for that and not the consumer?

Jones: I think you can certainly blame them for it, and I think that that's a problem, that they have lost the confidence of a lot of people. But I think that the point is that this is very important. It's certainly not perfect, and I don't try to portray newspapers in the past have ever been perfect. They're a human endeavor.

But as institutions, as institutions in towns and as institutions of our society and the way we govern ourselves and who we are, I think it is really important that they not go away or that these news organizations that have been newspapers continue to exist and continue to provide that role.

And you may say that they don't do it as much as they should, but they do it a hell of a lot more than anybody else has.

Tavis: But there are a number of papers, Alex Jones, you will concede that aren't - and I'm not casting aspersion on them, but they're not "The New York Times," they're not the "L.A. Times," they're not "The Wall Street Journal." But there are a lot of papers a lot smaller than those papers who really have been consistent from the beginning at reporting hard news, and they don't have the subscription levels that the big boys do.

So what's the argument, then, for why they don't have the same subscriber levels that others do if they are in the business, consistently, of giving us hard news? They would argue that folk don't want hard news.

Tavis: Well, I think a lot of people don't want hard news, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have it, and those people who don't want hard news still want somebody to be generating that hard news.

As I say, if you want to imagine what it's like, imagine your city council and your mayor and your governor and your senators without anybody looking over their shoulder. I think no matter whether you want to read it yourself or not, you want somebody looking over what's going on at the school board, looking on what's going on in the budget, looking on what's going on at the state capitol. Because we're all citizens here, and even if you're not going to take your citizen's responsibility seriously enough to inform yourself, you want somebody to be watching the store.

Tavis: Let me circle back right quick in 30 seconds then. So what, then, do we do, everyday people, to make sure that we don't lose the news, ultimately?

Jones: Buy a subscription to a newspaper and write the editor and demand real news.

Tavis: Spoken like a news man - right to the point, which I love.

Jones: Like a newspaper man.

Tavis: I love it, right to the point. "Losing the News: The Future of the News that Feeds Democracy," written by Alex S. Jones. Mr. Jones, thanks for your work. Glad to have you on the program, sir.

Jones: Thank you very much, Tavis.