How to Save Journalism

Can journalism be saved? Here are some ideas how.

Journalism is in trouble. Mainstream journalism is shrinking, and mass firings are constantly happening. People just don’t trust old journalism anymore, as many of its contributors seem to work directly against normal American values, and thus, people won’t pay for it.

It looks like that’s it for the old-school version of reporting, with us all having to get our news now from accounts like ratbarf74832 on Twitter. But maybe there is a way to save journalism and restore the parts of it actually worth saving. Here are my ideas to do just that:

Ideas on How to Save Journalism

• Report on things people actually care about. Journalists are completely disconnected from regular Americans; they’re a bunch of weirdoes trying to force their own agenda on everyone. Instead, journalists should report on things regular people care about, like a recap of last night’s episode of NCIS.

• Actual funny comics for print papers. For basically forever, the best part of the newspaper has been the comics page. The problem is, almost all those comics now are hollow husks of seventy-year-old concepts that, while often mimicking the structure of jokes, have not legitimately been funny since the Vietnam War. Maybe they could like, you know, get some actual funny comic strips in there. They have to exist somewhere. And just get rid of all those walking dead strips. Sorry, Andy Capp.

• Add more points of view. Again, journalists tend to be detestable weirdoes with terrible politics. Why not, instead of getting more Taylor Lorenzes, they hire a few people who aren’t terrible mental cases? They don’t even have to be journalists — just regular people who can tell you when your reporting is dumb and evil.

• Have a special secret conference. Maybe you can learn about other viewpoints by having a conference of all journalists together. You don’t want to be interrupted, though, so we’ll want to keep this conference secret from everyone else. Just follow the instructions on the silver envelope that was mailed to you. It might seem strange the instructions lead you to a large building in the middle of nowhere, but that’s just for extra security.

• Take the elevator down to it. Yeah, weird you’re going down when you entered on the ground floor, but maybe they got some deal on a basement conference room. And it will certainly keep prying eyes away as there are no windows. And look. Everyone is here. All the prominent journalists in this large basement room.

• Huh. Did the power just shut down? What was that crash? It’s so dark in here. Use the flashlight on your phone. Oh; that was the crash: The elevator shaft collapsed.

• Yes! Now you are all trapped underground in the dark! Muhahahaha! You’ve all fallen for my trap! You idiots. You are so easy to manipulate but I already knew that with you guys always trying to force every latest political fad down our throats in your terrible reporting.