The Future of Journalism
Those of you in the Fourth Estate will find this Baltimore Sun article to be an interesting read, I think. It offers a concise historical background that provides the groundwork for the author's conclusion: Newspapers must reinvent themselves to survive.
A key quote from the article:
"I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist," says Zollman, whose clients include the Tribune Co. "The newspaper business is changing radically, and journalism is changing pretty radically. But there will still be jobs for journalists. ... "I think in five or 10 years, newspapers will still be printed, but they will no longer be a mass media; they will be a most effective targeted medium and they will be the largest of the targeted media."
What do you all think of this? What will newspapers look like in 10 years?
posted by Ryan @ 3:13 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
I think that the nation's large papers must decide whether they are in the news business or the newspaper business. If they think their product is news, then they should be able to easily adapt to many different outlets for their product. If they think their product is newspapers, then they will disapear.
(The anonymous comment below was really from me, Jeff Hunter... sorry)
Stacy and I have a paper route to generate a little 'mad' money and 85% of the subscribers are 40 or older. People will still get newspapers but more media will be electronic. Easier and faster than print.
The fundamental problem is that print is too slow to keep up with other media as a valid means to deliver current events. By the time you get the paper you've already seen much of it somewhere else. Newspapers also have a one-size-fits-all mentality towards their product that is becoming increasingly obsolete, when I can go customize rss feeds and sources for my google home page.
That said, I think there is plenty of opportunity for newspapers to stay relevant. They can focus on superior coverage of local news and issues. They can do a better job of participating on the web. They should sell themselves as one important part of a complete set of news tools. Take advantage of the image of having info a day later to feature stories about what happened after the TV crews left a scene- a more complete picture. I think also, as people age they tend to prefer easy to read paper rather than glaring monitors.
Finally, if you have a google account, you should check out the google home page. You can set it up to be eerily similar to a newspaper- with tabs for different sections like "World" (feeds from USA Today, Google news), "Local" (local newspaper links, rss feeds on other local interests), "Technology", "Sports", "Fun/Games" (with comics and a crossword/sudoku), and "Entertainment" (my netflix queue, other music and movie news).
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