DMGNewspapers: RIP
Clay Shirky cuts to the heart of things:
Round and round this goes, with the people committed to saving newspapers demanding to know -- "If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?" -- To which the answer is: Nothing. Nothing will work. There is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the internet just broke.
[...] It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves -- the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public -- has stopped being a problem.
I honestly think that the newspaper industry has done a terrible job of covering its own demise. Papers are failing left and right, and no reporter seems to be able to get passed being angry about being out of work to see the big picture.
One sympathises. And the collapse of the newspaper business terrifies me. Unless Woodward and Bernstein can be replaced by hobbyists, we're in deep trouble. Investigative journalism of the kind that keeps governments in check takes enormous capital.
But we're not going to get anywhere until we start facing the hard truths of what's happening, and we can do about it.
Readers' Comments
My guess is a lot of big papers will fold, but the smaller town papers might hang on. Big cities tend to have competing media - often multiple newspapers, local network tv stations with local news, many radio stations with local news. Yes, we have local tv and radio stations, but the local news is usually just a brief covering of headlines.
I believe we have just proven the theory of evolution. The papers were not able to adapt and therefore quickly died out when new predators came along. Other lifeforms will spring up to fill their void. :D
Seriously though, do we need every city to employ a reporter to retread a daily story on world events? No. A dozen or so national sources will certainly suffice. Instead, it will be the local news that will be missed. But every town has smaller periodicals that can easily handle that extra load. Personally, I simply have no interest in local news and will not really miss it.
And for those who cry out that the web cannot replace the paper's journalism, I would offer up I Cringley, Slate, Huffingtonpost, & Politico as counterpoints.
I've heard a few sources say that while it's a bad time to be a newspaper, it's a good time to be a journalist. IIRC, the article said that more journalists are making more money with larger audiences than ever before, just not through newspapers. Instead, they're doing it in blogs, TV, radio, and online news outlets. Alas, I've lost the link somewhere...
The IDS has some stuff, but the HT has a broader appeal. City and County government issues are in the paper, for one thing. I read Cringley's new blog, but it doesn't pertain to current Bloomington issues. Yes, for national and international news, I can find much more online. Not so local.