Some news, notes and musings about the state of and future for journalism. (And I swear, if I read one more death of newspapers=death of journalism=death of democracy piece of crap, my head may explode.)
- Web-Only Post Intelligencer: Worthy Experiment That Won’t Work. Jeff Bercovici says math isn’t on the side of the Seattle pioneers. I can’t back it with stats, but still think the P-I has a good shot if they decide they are not an online newspaper.
- Why It’s OK for Newspapers to Die. Tech writer Sonia Arrison: “…this is simply a form of ‘creative destruction’ that should boost both choice and economic activity in the longer term.”
- Five predictions about US newspapers: Pt 1. The first prediction is that 85 per cent of American newspapers will be dead by 2011, which draws a large number of very smart comments, many of which agree with the math behind the premise but not the timeline. The prediction fails, in my opinion, because there’s more to newspapering than just the existing math.
- Future jobs for journalists. Terry Heaton looks ahead and identifies some of the new job possibilities, including live stream hub anchor.
- Students don’t read newspapers Shock! A very smart take from Andy Dickinson on the whole issue of students not reading newspapers. The reason they should, he says, has little to do with the news. Recommended for j-teachers and students.
- The best and worst time for journalism. Alan Mutter writes a good post that sums up where we are and where we may be going and the first commenters drag out the argument that we should license journalists. Sheesh.
- Why Advertising Is Failing On The Internet. A long post on why advertising will fail and what can be sold online. Interesting, scary and thought-provoking.
- Old journalism versus new journalism. Enough of the big thought stuff. Gina’s comparisons are as spot on as anything for hanging the newspaper mindset.
- Demos, not memos. I’m keeping a close eye on Revenue 2, which is a web site, a conference and a bunch of people throwing their best ideas at solutions for building revenue for media.
