A blog reader does not replace all the things people buy a newspaper for in my criteria. If it did, Newspapers would be dead already, but there is more to it than this. If anything, reach and growth of newspapers on the internet is growing so you won't get to dance on their grave that easily. News International spent £650M on new presses last year... http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/mar/17/pressandpublishing.rupertmurdoch ...clearly they are idiots. If only someone had told them about the internet. It is obviously a time of great change for Journalism. By newsroom colleagues I didn't mean to imply just the BBC, I meant friends and contacts in newsrooms across the globe who all have interesting stories to tell and face various challenges. The BBC is funded differently to many of these, but I can assure you UK, US and other newspapers all have plans. They are not packing up all the desks and switching off the lights; they are looking at how they adapt and stay relevant. You did actually predict gleefully the demise of the middleman, the aggregator, the editor, whatever you like to think of the Newspaper infrastructure as, and I think this is something that is not certain. If you don't want this then no one will force you to have it, but others do want it. I would say the recession is having a more acute effect than the internet. Without ad revenues, there are funding issues. Worth thinking about newspaper economics... http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2008/12/newspaper_economics.cfm "There's an old saying that you'll never understand newspaper economics until you understand why newspaper vending machines are designed so that you can take as many papers as you like for your quarter. Newspapers are, first and last, devices for delivering ads to readers. " Many would say that this is more likely what is bringing this issue rapidly to a head. In an environment where huge organisations can collapse, it's no surprise newspapers are feeling the effects. Striving for independence is not new to this field either. There is a long tradition of independent journalists, freelance reporters and photographers and it's nothing new that people have been trying independent models: http://agency.magnumphotos.com/about/about http://www.journalism.co.uk/12/articles/51787.php In a more direct move to deliver to the audience, an independent group such as the workers cooperative behind City Limits might be another interesting model of relevance, and it was not the internet that brought about it's existence or demise ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Limits_(London_magazine). Of course with these models there is still organisation and infrastructure. Someone pays the bills. Someone is exerting editorial control. If you want a (quality) picture of an event, someone has to be there and some poor pictures from a phone camera are not a replacement. This type of content is used where relevant. If you feel that the Journalistic community is full of people trying to subvert the truth, espousing mis-information, I dread the day that a billion unaccountable blogs replace them. I'd pay for something in between and that might likely be the Newspapers in a different form. I don't think I will be alone. To use another quote from the link above... "For a while now, readers have had the best of both worlds: all the benefits of the old, high-profit regime--intensive reporting, experienced editors, and so on--and the low costs of the new one. But that situation can't last. Soon enough, we're going to start getting what we pay for, and we may find out just how little that is." Cheers, jod (...this is my personal opinion only of course...)
________________________________ From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk on behalf of Dave Crossland Sent: Tue 17/03/2009 08:43 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Clay Shirky: Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable 2009/3/17 John O'Donovan <john.odono...@bbc.co.uk>: > > [those] in the newsroom should go get another job > to pay the bills so that they can support their journalism in their spare > time, sort themselves out and learn up about internet marketing and the > brave new world. > > Seriously? Yes. Professional bloggers have been moving out of other institutions and in to that model for a few years now. So why not? > I'll pass those thoughts on to my journalistic colleagues, but I > don't think that is the future. As I said, I think those who resist will have another job and will not continue to do journalism, unless they either already work in a resilient model - which would be your journalistic colleagues at the BBC, who can tell me I'm mistaken all they like because they won't be out of work this/next year. > For example, thinking about printed Newspapers, people like to read the news > on the way to work. When a digital model effectively replaces the simplicity > of accessing Journalism in a printed form, in a varied and moving > environment like travelling to work then these people will stop buying > newspapers. It's a wasteful and expensive way to get the news anyway. This effective replacement will happen when all the new phones available are iPhone, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, or Android - that is, they have screens and webbrowsers to read with. > Will this mean that the Guardian or other newspapers stop printing their > content on paper? Maybe. It doesn't mean they cease to exist though. I'm not saying that the Guardian brand will totally cease to exist. I'm saying that most of their journalists will be laid off in the depression, and won't be hired again. > Of course, though people may stop wanting to pay for Newspapers, Metro has > proved you can distribute the physical newspaper for free. On my commute it > is quite hard to get to work without reading Metro... Does the Metro hires lots of journalists? :-) > There is a new exciting model out there that will deliver content of > interest and preference to me, my favourite journalists packaged, what my > social network likes and reinforce my own biased viewpoints. And works on > the train. And challenges my thinking on a Sunday afternoon with a mass of > thought provoking features and ideas carefully brought together. > Not found it yet. It is a program called a "blog reader." Cheers, Dave - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
