There has never been a mass market for good journalism in this country. What there used to be was a mass market for print ads, coupled with a mass market for a physical bundle of entertainment, opinion, and information; these were tied to an institutional agreement to subsidize a modicum of real journalism. In that mass market, the opinions of the politically engaged readers didn’t matter much, outnumbered as they were by people checking their horoscopes. This suited advertisers fine; they have always preferred a centrist and distanced political outlook, the better not to alienate potential customers. When the politically engaged readers are also the only paying readers, however, their opinion will come matter more, and in ways that will sometimes contradict the advertisers’ desires for anodyne coverage.
It is my emphasis on the first sentences which I think is and important insight for anyone trying to assess the value of journalism based on historical performance.
(via infoneer-pulse)
Source: shirky.com
Most print newspapers will be gone in 5 years - Is America at a digital turning point? - :: Future of Journalism
Circulation of print newspapers continues to plummet, and we believe that the only print newspapers that will survive will be at the extremes of the medium – the largest and the smallest,” said Cole. It’s likely that only four major daily newspapers will continue in print form: The New York Times, USA Today, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. At the other extreme, local weekly newspapers may still survive.
Philip Greenspun's Weblog » How did the New York Times manage to spend $40 million on its pay wall?
Aside from wondering who will pay more than the cost of a Wall Street Journal subscription in order to subscribe to the New York Times, my biggest question right now is how the NY Times spent a reported $40-50 million writing the code (Bloomberg; other sources are consistent). […] What am I missing?This is really an important question, where the answer has huge implications for the future. The reason that traditional organizations spend so much on solving problems in general, and on IT solutions in particular, is what constitutes their main challenge. When small and young organizations, who is built on domain specific knowledge and bottom-up principles do something they are spending less resources by several magnitudes. And part from spending less resources on building the solution, the methodology and the lower threasholds to understanding the customer situation gives then a much higher probability of succeeding. They are simply closer to their customers and their problems. Modern organizations are not as hierarchical, mechanistic or has as many internal dependencies as traditional organizations and will never understand why it costs 40 million USD to build e g a paywall solutions. This is really the main challenge for traditional organizations like many newspapers publishers. And we haven’t even talked about if a paywall will really work or not…
Source: joelaz
CHART OF THE DAY: Why The Newspaper Industry Collapsed
What can we say about this? One thing we can say is that change an industry logic is extremely difficult even if you are staring right into the abyss. Any similarities to deers looking into headlights?
Source: Business Insider
Newspapers and technology: Network effects | The Economist
What lessons does the telegraph hold for newspapers now grappling with the internet? The telegraph was first seen as a threat to papers, but was then co-opted and turned to their advantage. “The telegraph helped contribute to the emergence of the modern newspaper,” says Ford Risley, head of the journalism department at Penn State University. “People began to expect the latest news, and a newspaper could not succeed if it was not timely.
An interesting article in the Economist telling the story about how the telegraph changed the newspaper logic in the mid 19th century, in order to discuss what is happening with newspapers today.
Even if this is interesting read, I think this comparison holds very little value for understanding today’s changes. The reason is that the changes we see now are going much deeper than what happened with the birth of the telegraph.
- The telegraph did not change the broadcasting logic that underlies the concept of distribution of news, it just made it faster
- The telegraph didn’t change the logic of how individuals communicated with each other since telegraph wasn’t available for everybody
What the diffusion of new Internet technologies are radically changing are both the concept of news as well as the concept of broadcasting, two of the fundamental pillars news broadcasting media are built upon. This does not necessary mean that all newspapers will die but it does quite clearly mean that how newspapers are produced, by whom they are produced, how they are financed, by whom they are read and what role they play in daily life will radically change.
Stop the Presses: The Death of the Newspaper Industry
The newspapers used to make the news, now they are the news. Reports of their death may indeed be premature but there is no question they are dying. The recession hasn’t helped but the real story is a shift in the habits of American consumers and the emergence of a new generation that gets most of its news online and for free. Newspapers are struggling for both relevancy and revenue in every major US market (although some are certainly making valid efforts to compete and innovate in the digital world). Our infographic is a sad commentary on this once thriving industry. Read all about it.
Seen at Mint.com Blog
Source: infoneer-pulse
