The bad news for newspapers keeps coming. Thousands of observers have now become "death of newspaper bloggers," but it's obvious that the proliferation of desktop computers, laptops, and cell phones have made sheets of smudgy-inked paper obsolete. Dirk Singer, our PR friend over in London, has perhaps the simplest explanation of why papers are in trouble -- readers have moved online, advertising dollars have not followed, and for every paper that tries to charge readers for content online, there are 10 others that won't.
However, journalism will obviously survive. Blogs, including this one, can't make up for dedicated, real reporting. Someone has to interview people, wade through documents, and see what's really going on.
The second problem with newspapers failing is the potential absence of editors who help select news stories they think you should read. Admit it. If you didn't have an editor at The New York Times telling you about starving people in Africa, you'd certainly never search for it.
The economics are changing, and huge printing presses and the associated costs with chopping down forests will have to go away. Perhaps there have always been too many journalists -- one reason why the starting salary for editorial assistants is often below $20k in the U.S., because dozens of people have always clamored for every single job.
The job market will shrink. The papers will move online. There will be fewer advertising dollars. It's all inevitable. But the role of real journalists, and real editors who help pick the stories you need to see, will always be around. The only ray of light we see is the tightening market may actually improve journalistic quality, as the best of the best fight to remain, sharing via dedicated expertise what happened in the world today.
Photo: DRB62
1 comments:
Two things:
1. This always shocks the conscience when I say it to people, but the value of editorial goes down with the move away from paper. Editorial is more necessary with paper distribution because it's fire once and then done. The Internet allows for multiple revisions and updates after publishing.
2. I think papers have to get away from the commodity browser experience and provide something more on the web. I'm really impressed with the nytimes iphone app. I'd pay for that, and I'd pay to get it on my mac (ad free). I want a few updates though, like the ability to share articles on social bookmarking sites.
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