Wait! Don't condemn the house just yet...

The Fourth Estate only needs a renovation. 

Any dedicated journalist, or former journalist like myself, who read the Pew Research Center’s 2013 State of the News Media report was probably as discouraged I was.

It identified devastating cuts in staffing and resources in newsrooms across the country, down 30 percent since 2000. A depressing statistic the report said “adds up to a news industry that is more undermanned and unprepared to uncover stories, dig deep into emerging ones or question information put into its hands.”

The foundation of the Fourth Estate, the house we built to hold our Judicial, Legislative and Executive power houses in check, was crumbling while politicians and government agencies as well as corporations with agendas based in billions in profits made out like the fox in the hen house. The deflated power of the media enabled anyone with a special interest and lots of money to leverage their message unfiltered through social media and quasi-media/entertainment masquerading as genuine news.

But had our collective conscience become so inured to the lack of integrity in news coverage that we were willing to have news packaged by slave labor and sold to us wholesale like bulk bonbons at BJ’s?

Apparently not, skip ahead to Pew’s State of the News Media 2014. While the erosion of old school media continues, it appears the wake up call was received. Initiatives to reinvent the delivery of world-class journalism are taking root and growing.

So even in the wake of the Gatehouse Media announcement that this year will bring yet another round of cuts to the Cape Cod Times newsroom, there is hope on the horizon that the tide will soon turn. If Gatehouse could read the tea leaves instead of their own poorly staffed newspapers they might see that the corporate slash and burn technique to grow their bottom line will ultimately prove the penny wise pound foolish prophesy.

Detoxing from our dependency on newsprint has been difficult. Those of us who came up in the industry in newsrooms with morning budget meetings, booming scanners and 6 o’clock deadlines still twitch just a little. But we have to admit we saw this coming even as the lights went out on the page layout tables in the 1990s.

The Internet grew like a monster host to social media and digital news outlets. They emerged like a new colt busting out of the stall with all the technical power of a thoroughbred but none of the intellect that was being systematically carved out of newsrooms by short sighted corporate giants like Gatehouse.

The trend Pew is seeing now is the merging of tech and intellect developing a hybrid news product that is once again what we expect just in a form we couldn't imagine ten years ago.

According to the report overview, "BuzzFeed, once scoffed at for content viewed as 'click bait,' now has a news staff of 170, including top names like Pulitzer Prize-winner Mark Schoofs, and is the kind of place that ProPublica's Paul Steiger says he would want to work at if he were young again. Mashable now has a news staff of 70 and enticed former New York Times assistant managing editor Jim Roberts to become its chief content officer."

These new houses of journalism have come of age to filter out online and broadcast tabloid noise and give us what we deserve; honest, unbiased, investigated stories.

And according to Pew consumers recognize the difference and so do investors, venture capitalists and philanthropists. While the pockets are not yet defined as deep, the lock is off of the wallet.

So, I say to my fellow Cape Cod Times alum and those who are still holding down the fort at 319 Main Street, fear not.

One of the unique qualities of the collective Dow Jones and Gatehouse Media fallout at the Cape Cod Times over the last decade is the abandon of some of the most talented and dedicated journalists, photographers, editors, and advertising reps in one place. In the wake of their short sightedness is a band of professionals who have remained local, connected and loyal to the journalistic objective and ready to be reengaged. Never have grass roots been so fertile. 

For any investors out there, just add money and shake.