News and paper

There's all sorts of journalism about journalism being written these days as the news paper industry falls apart around us. I think it's relevant to start separating "news" from "paper" when we describe that industry as the two words become increasingly unlinked. Last week the Seattle Post-Intelligencer became the most recent news paper to lose the paper. Lots of interesting stories and analysis of the trend, here's some of the notable.

• Clay Shirky:  Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable - "When someone demands to know how we are going to replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won’t break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren’t in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to. There are fewer and fewer people who can convincingly tell such a lie."
• Steven Johnson: Old Growth Media and the Future of News - "I think that steady transformation from desert to jungle may be the single most important trend we should be looking at when we talk about the future of news. Not the future of the news industry, or the print newspaper business: the future of news itself. Because there are really two worst case scenarios that we’re concerned about right now, and it's important to distinguish between them. There is panic that newspapers are going to disappear as businesses. And then there’s panic that crucial information is going to disappear with them, that we’re going to suffer as culture because newspapers will no long be able to afford to generate the information we’ve relied on for so many years."
• Sonia Arrison: Why It's OK for Newspapers to Die - "Resource limitations make it difficult for a single newspaper in Los Angeles or New York to cover every relevant story of local interest. When the Web takes over, however, there can be multiple blogs and companies competing to provide coverage, and the information becomes much broader and richer. This transition from a top-down method of news reporting to a more distributed system won't be easy at first -- and, like the horse-and-buggy drivers of 100 years ago, many old-school journalists will find themselves looking for a new job. Yet this change, a clear form of creative destruction, will create a more responsive and richer world of media with more stories and more ways of organizing and validating those stories than ever before."
• Jennifer Saba: Newspaper Sites See Big Gains in Uniques - "More than half of the top 30 newspaper Web sites gained double-digit percentages of visitors in February, according to new data from Nielsen Online."
• Richard Perez-Pena: Buyout Firm Acquires San Diego Paper - "A private equity firm has bought The San Diego Union-Tribune, the two sides said Wednesday, ending eight decades of Copley family dominance of that city’s news media. Copley Press and Platinum Equity, based in Beverly Hills, declined to say how much Platinum was paying, but a person briefed on the deal called the price 'very low,' and said Platinum was the only serious bidder. The sale will close in the second quarter."

Comments

[randyk]

makes me sad - i'll pass on with newsprint on my hand, probably from Wired or the Economist... but i'd let the WSJ and economist give me a kindle with a 2-year "contract", and be okay with that... seems math works for all 3 parties (scribes, reader, AMZN)