The Christmas break provided me with a rare and special reading-fest. I plowed through 15 books, including Daniel Stashower’s The Beautiful Cigar Girl, a non-fictional account of a murder in New York City in 1841 that was popularized by Edgar Allan Poe. The murder of a beautiful cigar girl gave the city’s penny presses a carnival of twists and turns, suspects, clues and police mistakes.
Called the father of the penny press, James Gordon Bennett, editor of the New York Herald, claimed his newspaper would “outstrip everything in the conception of man. . . What is to prevent a daily newspaper from being made the greatest organ of social life? Books have had their day. The theaters have had their day. The temple of religion has had its day. A newspaper can be made to take the lead of all of these in the great movement of human thought.”
So what’s next in leading “the great movement of human thought?”
Books, theater, religion and newspapers all have at least one thing in common: A lack of interaction/feedback, at least on a grand scale, by and from from their readers/viewers/adherents, who are largely passive. They read, watch, listen, and believe.
The Internet, citizen journalism, and blogging each have the potential to fill these participatory voids, allowing for more active participation. These new “interactors” can (and do!) provide content, rather than just take what they’re given. This means very new and evolving roles for newspapers.
Print-based news media will survive, but will they occupy more than a niche? I don’t think so, though it will be a large niche, and eventually a profitable one. Like magazines, it will be a mostly Long Tail economy in which publishers tailor increasingly specific content for their increasingly specific audiences (narrowcasting). The giant newspaper presses and man-killing rolls of newsprint are fast becoming as quaint as steam engines and whale oil.
A student in my Writing for Digital Media course offered this analogy: The power grid. “I see news gathering becoming less centralized, as in so many facets of our society. Electric utilities now talk about a ‘distributed’ generation, which means solar PV modules on individual rooftops, all feeding the grid. The gazillion bloggers already out there and the growing use of personal electronics that turn everybody into a reporter, which we witnessed again in Mumbai, shows a parallel trend in journalism.” I think Bruce is right on.
Professionals likely will continue to serve as this journalistic grid’s caretakers and overseers, the conduit through which news flows from a universe of sources. Many readers will demand reasonably good prose, thorough reporting and vetting that trained and experienced writers and editors provide. Of course, many will not.
The power grid analogy recognizes that technology has enabled anyone to commit random acts of journalism. But filters will still be needed. Someone will have to organize and oversee the grid. Without them, the information ecosystem would — to mix my metaphors — quickly resemble the Caddyshack pool on “Caddies Day.” (An early example of product placement, by the way.)
“Doodie! Doodie!”
January 14, 2009 at 9:18 pm |
It is true that almost anyone can participate in “journalist-like” activities. I can go outside, find a story, write it up, take pictures, and post it to the web. Alternatively, I could write it up, take pictures, put my content into a layout using InDesign, and print it at home on my computer. Most of these basic skills–writing, using a camera, printing–are learned by most people at a very young age. As for the others, they can be learned in high school, and it doesn’t have to be a very affluent high school. The problem created is that there are large numbers of people, many of them teenaged, with equipment that would enable them to “journalize,” but they have never had any training as to what journalism really is, what the legal and ethical responsibilities it entails are.
I do think that newspapers will become a large niche enterprise, like vinyl records or Converse All-Stars, perhaps seeing brief spikes in popularity depending on the fads. Small, independent enterprises corner the market on most vintage products until one of those products has a spike of popularity, at which time mainstream conglomerates invariably pick up the slack and willingly produce these desirable items for consumers. And that’s exactly what I think will happen to newspapers. News will continue primarily in venues such as TV, radio, and internet, and newsgathering will be highly decentralized, but the newspaper will continue to appeal to a small number of readers, and will be provided as a sideline to these other, more modern forms of technology. Of course, if it enjoys a popularity spike, mainstream conglomerates will likely hold true to form and pull it to the forefront while the fad lasts.
January 14, 2009 at 9:48 pm |
the first related example that comes to mind is my use of google video and youtube; sites in which the public posts self captured clips for anyone to view. The search friendliness of these sites make it easy for the audience to sift through millions of videos to locate specific events. if something big happens and news worthy happens it is likely that i can find decent home video style coverage of it that is, often times, un-slanted and usually more entertaining. plus i can find really long tail topics like climbing and music that would never be covered by “hit” media providers. but thats just a thought
January 14, 2009 at 11:36 pm |
At my home university in Stockholm I take the subway to school, all around the station there are people working for newspapers handing out free newspapers for people to read on the subway, train or the bus. These are smaller newspapers, founded by ads with mostly local things from Stockholm and around but also bigger news from all over Sweden. I think that these papers will keep print going, they are handy, they summarize the biggest news are they have a crossword puzzle. The other thing that could possibly help save the print is local news. It is always amazing to see how proud parents and grand parents are when there kids and grand kids for some reason are in the paper. They cut the clippings out and save them, even if it cant save big scale news papers it can save a form of them. So the combination of local news and free news is something that I believe can help save or at least slow the death down.
January 15, 2009 at 2:09 pm |
What news (stories) is selling news papers today? In my local town, our small newspaper thrives off of special edition event inserts (e.g. the town’s 150 celebration, a seafood festival, the Christmas holiday). Some people buy “for funsies” to glance at the large amount of local content and pictures (ok, mostly pictures), while others, particularly elderly locals, buy to collect. Meanwhile, local businesses jump at the chance to buy ads in these specific editions for obvious reasons. Outside of the local paper, I find a lot of my peers buy the larger daily papers for the “Living” section that is full of advice columns, celebrity “news,” movie reviews and sarcastic/humorous syndicated columnists. Sure, they are interested in whether or not Israel goes to war or a tornado landed in a nearby town, however, chances are they have already viewed hours of content via television and internet. Within our fast paced society grows an ever increasing desire for immediate access to pretty much anything, especially news. Unfortunately, newspapers cannot grant that wish. It is happening vs. happened.
January 15, 2009 at 2:55 pm |
The thought that anyone can now go out and actively participate in journalism is exciting and terrifying at the same time. It is exciting because it does allow everyday folks to be involved in the reporting process. This creates a unique opportunity to see what really matters to those who haven’t been told by teachers or editors what makes a good news story. It is somewhat terrifying for the same reason that it is exciting-everyone can participate and with little to no oversight. Accountability is critical to good journalism. I’d like to be sure that the news I get is accurate and as complete as possible. I’m not sure I like the idea of relying on individuals with no affiliation to any news company for my information. I’m not suggesting that all citizen journalists are unreliable. I’m sure many act in good faith and do there best to present the news accurately, but I would still feel more comfortable looking at the New York Times for my news.
I like the idea of professionals acting as the caretakers and overseers of the “journalistic grid.” I think this would mean that newspapers, tv news networks, etc. would review stories reported on by these citizen journalists, determine if they are reliable, put their stamp of approval on them and publish them. Something like that would go a long way to alleviating some of my concerns.
January 15, 2009 at 11:00 pm |
Internet and live blogging have become the central station for breaking news considering the element of timeliness and the ability to find news almost instantly. Because of these factors, I feel that the Internet will replace the older mediums of newspapers and television as a primary source of news in the future. People are given that chance for interaction with the journalism community, previously nonexistent in other media, and can contribute information to current events (whether it be accurate and well-written or not). The main ingredient lacking in the new media of blog posting and citizen journalism though is expertise in the field. If journalism takes the route of allowing anyone to provide news, it will handicap the field severely and present the public with inarticulate, biased and inaccurate accounts of news without the respect of the ethics of journalism. I would prefer journalists to adopt the role of “watchdog”, if you will, and mediate as well as modify the content provided by citizen contributors to ensure that a full story is covered. I firmly support the principles of good journalism and feel that citizen journalism has its advantages and disadvantages. The print world isn’t dying in my opinion, but finding a new home amongst citizens, as books and black and white movies found their niches in years past.
January 15, 2009 at 11:07 pm |
In my home town in Polk County, TN the local newspaper is alive and well. It’s a small town where a new Sonic restaurant or a turkey hunt is big news. A large number of the local population get the paper and read it thoroughly. There are often subscription ads with a picture of a cat or baby “reading” the paper with the words “Everyone reads the Polk County News!” and it’s not much of an exaggeration. But even with a large readership, the paper does not employ many writers. This is not only because they are low-budget, but also because many articles and pieces are written by random locals who either felt passionately about a topic or wanted to advertise or give credit for a project of some sort. I myself contributed a couple of pieces describing or advertising for the local Girl Scouts’ service projects. A fair amount of the paper is written by the very people who read it. I think this has been key to their success. They also involve the readers by doing such pieces as printing an old black and white photo and asking readers to identify the long-lost friends and relatives pictured.
When I try to think of a metaphor, the picture that keeps popping up in my mind is that of a board room of a large company. Traditionally, this would be the place where the heads of the company congregate to make decisions and provide updates of where they are headed. But, instead of this traditional view, I see a table full of consumers expressing their desires and contributing ideas and material directly to the attentive board members, much like the way the residents of Polk County, TN have contributed to their paper.
January 16, 2009 at 12:26 am |
According to developing of the technology, especially Internet, everyone not only can access a lot of information regardless of the place where they live, but they can create a bunch of information. Affected by the phenomenon, a word is being used in South Korea, which is “one person media” One person media refers to a person who claims his/her own opinion about some issue on Internet. Actually, one-person media played an important role in South Korea, related to candle light protester who demonstrate against the government policy that allows the importation of U.S. beef because of anxiety about mad cow disease. At that time, some press reports had a tone which approved of the government policy and described protest as an injustice. Many people, including the protestors, criticized the press, and not only did readership of the press decrease, but people also demonstrated in front of press buildings. Especially people were choosing to broadcast and document their protest experiences on the internet. Some people, who can be referred as one person media, started to carry live broadcasts of the demonstrations by using their laptop computers and the internet and other people watched the online broadcast from around the world. Further, many protesters delivered a lot of information to other people by sending text messages. This phenomenon has become the new aspect of the media industry and also I think that the phenomenon is a part which future journalist should study and develop.
January 16, 2009 at 11:43 am |
I think the power grid analogy is a great way to look at the future of journalism. Sites such as facebook, YouTube and the like provide a means for the public to be both producers and consumers of content, which has revolutionized the way we get our news. All of these aspects combine and feed into the general pool of knowledge provided by “news.”
But, hopefully, we will continue to move towards interactive ways of exchanging information. Not that blogs and facebook posts are the most credible sources of information in the world, but they offer different perspectives and angles on a particular issue or story. Without developing this system of information exchange, we may eventually look at digital media the same way Bill Murray looked at that mysterious Baby Ruth: “It’s no big deal!”
January 16, 2009 at 11:54 am |
I believe that newspapers will become publications that will largely serve niche groups. The internet and blogging has opened up the doors for audiences to access a massive amount of news in only a few minutes. Newspapers are no longer needed to get the latest breaking news especially on a national setting. I do however believe that those in smaller towns and rural areas will hold fast to the tradition of reading the local paper. It is would be wise for those publications to adapt to a more tech savvy audience, however the charm of reading the local news in print isn’t completely lost. Newspapers night not make as much of a profit as they did in the past, however if they can find the right audience, they can survive and maybe even thrive. It’s also important to note that the technology that’s making some readers put down papers is the same resource that’s allowing local papers to cover national and international stories with accuracy and credibility.
May 20, 2009 at 1:10 pm |
Great post=D hope to definitely come back again.