There is a lot of talk nowadays about what will replace the dinosaur that is the daily newspaper. So-called citizen journalists and bloggers and media pundits have lined up to tell us that newspapers are dying but that the news business will endure, that this moment is less tragic than it is transformational.
Well, sorry, but I didn’t trip over any blogger trying to find out McKissick’s identity and performance history. Nor were any citizen journalists at the City Council hearing in January when police officials inflated the nature and severity of the threats against officers. And there wasn’t anyone working sources in the police department to counterbalance all of the spin or omission.
I didn’t trip over a herd of hungry Sun reporters either, but that’s the point. In an American city, a police officer with the authority to take human life can now do so in the shadows, while his higher-ups can claim that this is necessary not to avoid public accountability, but to mitigate against a nonexistent wave of threats. And the last remaining daily newspaper in town no longer has the manpower, the expertise or the institutional memory to challenge any of it.
The Classic Rock Magazine Is Switching to a Smaller, Rack-Friendly Size
AZspot: Blogging and Journalism
At the same time, most organizations are pretty lax on their definition of “press.” When I was in j-school, we needed press credentials to get into the county jail to write a story on overcrowding there. Our professor made us nice ID cards that nevertheless identified us as contributors to one of the j-school’s blogs. The fact that we had verification that we were writing for something, though, was apparently enough.
Newspapers are thriving in many developing countries
In places like India and China, newspaper readership has grown along with wealth and literacy rates. People like to know what’s going on in their community and practice their new reading skills — two things a newspaper lets them do.
India’s strong tradition of press freedom means that local papers are largely left alone by government officials. China is an interesting case — though all papers are state-owned, some Communist officials see newspapers a tool for helping fight corruption.
The Coming Death of Paper as an Information Storage Medium
Whatever can be digitized will be digitized. Hardware can not compete with software in elegance, simplicity, and cost. From the iPhone to online banking, digital things are superior to physical. Soon the clerk in the bank is not going to be retyping the wire transfer from a piece of paper. Soon we will be electing the president of the United States via electronic voting.
The author thinks books will survive, though — while newspapers/magazines are “dirty,” books are “magical.” Time will tell, I suppose, but probably by the time everyone is carrying an iPhone around all that newsprint will seem rather old fashioned.
