Shift from newspapers to televised news coverage
Dabney rejects the idea that television will replace newspapers. Instead, newspaper writers will retain job security because of their training.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Virginius Dabney, July 31, 1975. Interview A-0311-2. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- WILLIAM H. TURPIN:
-
Yes, I wanted to ask you just a couple of things to get a general view on
newspapers. A lot of people are saying that television is supplanting
newspapers. I wondered what you think of newspapers now, generally
speaking, and what will be here in ten, twenty, or thirty years, having
spent your life in the business?
- VIRGINIUS DABNEY:
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I don't see television supplanting newspapers. I think that it has cut
into the circulation of a good many papers and several magazines, but
there are areas that newspapers cover that television can't cover and
never can, as operated today. I see many technical changes in
newspapers, different methods of production, for example, electronic
things that I don't begin to understand, but which are coming and which
will perpetuate newspapers, in my opinion. Television has a role, I
think; it is often a rather distorted role
and a pernicious role. I don't mean to say that all newspapers are
public benefactors, either. Some of them are pernicious, too. But the
newspapers are here to stay. I believe that they are technically better
than they ever were and that the newspaper men are better trained than
they ever were. I think some schools of journalism are worthless and
others are extremely good; training in a good school of journalism is a
benefit to any aspiring newspaper man.