This comes as a surprise: The Wall Street Journal has decided to close its news research department:
“When I asked who will do research for the reporters, I was told, ‘No one,’” the memo from Leslie A. Norman, posted on a librarian list serve last week, stated. “The reporters will probably be using a Lexis product called Due Diligence Dashboard (you know how your moms told you ‘if you can’t say something nice…’)”
She later adds that it cannot replace the “knowledge about how to research using all the tricks we’ve learned over the years. We figure that the reporters will probably spend 10 times our compensation trying to do their own research.”
Fourteen research staffers lost their jobs as a result of the shutdown.
It’s easy to perhaps look at Norman’s comments about the value of librarians as the last gasps of someone who is desperate to keep her job, but I think there’s much more to her statement. Journalists (and attorneys, and academics) are extremely busy professionals, and while they may have the skills to do their own research, they rarely if ever have the time. A good news research department is an integral part of any news organization of record, and to see that a paper as venerable as The Wall Street Journal thinks that the research staff adds no value to the organization shows an amazing lack of understanding on behalf of management of the day to day realities of newspaper staff. Oh, and there’s that whole undervaluing of librarians thing again, but that’s old news.