Plunging to Despair

Bill Lueders of Isthmus had a revealing article yesterday in which he described a meeting of the minds wherein representatives of the Madison Police Department and The Media found common ground in their abstinence from doughnuts. Mr. Lueders also noted:

Lt. Joe Balles followed by noting that it’s easier for police to trust reporters if they sense they are doing an in-depth story (like the sort Isthmus often does, which he neglected to say), not a wham, bam, thank you man. He urged media managers to allow reporters to do this kind of story, without an imposing deadline. Wray asked if this was a problem and several reporters agreed they are under more pressure than ever to produce at a high volume.

I asked Mr. Lueders if he felt any pressure to "produce at a high volume" and here's what he told me:

Yes, but in my case this is mainly with regard to writing for the Web…Web writing is usually done pretty fast, amid other duties.

Another local reporter, Dustin Christopher, writes in reflection on the same meeting:

In today's Modern American Mediascape, being competitive means every passing minute is another deadline, and that doesn't leave a lot of time to sit down over a coffee or a brew and catch up. That doesn't leave time for personal understanding. That doesn't leave time for trust.

This relates to something I wrote earlier this week in which I complained that The Cap Times lacks investigative reporting, especially with regards to following any money trails. Investigative reporting is surely an expensive and time-consuming process and The Cap Times' reporters (and, no doubt, those of other newspapers) presumably have a small budget and not enough time. They are mainly an online entity due to fiscal considerations and their webpage must cry for a near constant stream of news and updates.

The absence of an imposing deadline must be anathema to web publishers. The Web seems like a leviathan with an insatiable appetite, its maw perpetually open demanding to be fed. Is the move from print to web helping to kill good reporting by coveting quantity over quality?