Yes, it's related to computers, sortakinda.
The print media scrambles to remain relevant in the information singularity
age. Michael Kinsley moons Time magazine on the way out the door and posts
an overly-long, but spot on, critique of Newsweek's new model, which is to
tell the booges to piss off the and hit up the ruling class to cancel their
Harpers sub.
http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=7cc5324e-0fbc-4316-a656-d49e77e3a5a4
Michael Kinsley is sooooooooo bitter. Could he do a better job for
Newsweek? Nah. They don't want him either
I worked for a small town paper in Havre de Grace, Maryland for a while.
It merged with another local paper. It worked out well. Then they were
bought by the Baltimore Sun, but that was OK because the original paper
had been owned and run by a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter from the
Sun. Then the Sun was bought by the LA Times which cut reporters and
support staff to increase profits. LA Times was bought by the Chicago
Tribune which had already been bought by some guy who had no interest in
newspapers. The Trib is bankrupt and bringing down everything else.
Main problem isn't lack of interest or readership, which is less, but
not seriously less. Advertising is down, but it's always down in a
recession. Main problem with many of the good newspapers has been
conglomos--ownership by corporate entities that have no interest in
publications other than making a profit. A 10% profit for a newspaper is
OK, but conglomos want 30% profit. Solutions? Start with local
ownership, force conglomerates to break up so news can be local again.
Profits are OK, but the combined nonprofit/profit model of the St.
Petersburg Times works well, and keeps it local.
Online solution? How about a clearing house for newspaper content where
you pay a monthly or yearly subscription to view stories in a variety of
papers. When you log in, each newspaper gets paid by keeping track of
the articles you view, not by your ID, only by number of readers for
each article. Can this be done? Might work.
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