There’s been a big discussion this past week concerning the demise of newspapers. Everyone from Dave Winer, Robert Scoble and Scott Karp to those in the newsprint trenches like Mathew Ingram has chimed in on the conversation.
In his usual manner Robert proclaimed that newspapers are dead which in turned sparked a further ranging debate on the issue. It was really Mathew’s post though that prompted me to add my two cents to the conversation.
In his post Mathew suggests
To me, part of the problem is that everyone focuses on the “paper” part of the word “newspaper,” which to me is the least important part of the term. There’s no question that the paper part of the business is decreasing in importance, and news may no longer be primarily distributed on smashed-up trees. Does that change the nature of the business? Definitely.
But it doesn’t mean newspaper companies have to die — it just means they need to evolve.
On the whole when it comes to the big city newspapers I think he maybe right about the lack of importance in the “paper” part of the equation. However when it comes to small town Canada (or your own country of choice) the paper part of the equation is important. The problem is that most; if not all, small town papers are just weekly flyers for the big paper chains that own them and as such have really lost their local identity. Even when you visit the websites of the local papers; if even have one to begin with, they are just an extension of the parent company’s site.
Even with the loss of a local identity though local papers are still very important to a small community. For many people in those communities this is their information lifeline for what is going on and I can use our household as a prime example. I pretty well get all my news from the net and couldn’t tell you much of what is happening locally but on the other hand my wife Kim has no interest in computers or the net. For her the local paper is her information vehicle and she looks forward to the days it arrives at our front door and promptly reads it front to back – sometimes more than once.
For me as much as I would like to keep up on the local events the newspaper doesn’t hold any interest and going to their faux website is an exercise in frustration. They don’t even have a RSS feed let alone anyone from the paper blogging about the town.
For me I really think that local news could be the big winner out of this disruption of the old time media but they need to get back to being a real part of the communities they work in – not just being an extension of their big city owners. I also think that the small town newspapers are prime candidates for riding this crest of new journalism and new media because they are small and not bogged down by big corporate mentalities.
I am sure that some local news organizations are beginning to get it if Karoli’s post on the subject is any indication but this change isn’t something that can be procrastinated over in executive boardrooms. If local news wants to be the winner both in print and on the net then now is the time to start.
Update #1: Stowe Boyd just posted a piece on the subject as well and his conclusion is that the big boys may survive but the locals are toast
The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other national rags (USA Today?) will likely make it, although their economics may change. But the average local newspaper is dead.
I sure hope he’s wrong.
Update #2: Doug Karr cuts right to the meat of the matter when he adds to the conversation with his post where he said
I’ll take it a step further… selling news is dead.
Maybe some-one should get ahold of Don Maclean and let him know it’s time for a new song.
I have an ego much like everyone else in the world and I like to think that I’m fairly intelligent; but when I read people like Dave Winer I realize that at 50 I still have so much to learn. This is one of the reason I love to blog because daily I am in vicarious contact with people like him and that excites me, makes me want to keep on learning.
Is there a critical mass that a blogger has to reach before he or she can say that they have joined the ranks of the most popular blogs?
As I was going through my midmorning read of feeds I was struck by how little real technology news is continually available. hmm let me rephrase that a little bit. There is a lot technology news out there but it comes to us through a very small blogging channel and the rest of the blogosphere is nothing but commentary on that news.
