'How do we save newspapers?' is the wrong question!

[kevyn]

"When a 14 year old kid can blow up your business in his spare time, not because he hates you but because he loves you, then you got a problem." -- Gordy Thompson

New Media thinker Clay Shirkey has written a fascinating essay, "Newspapers and the Unthinkable" on the future (or lack thereof) of newspapers.

In it, he addresses some of the very issues that I myself have been thinking about: how newspapers are in total meltdown because of the web and services like Craigslist, how the Internet is a revolution every bit as profound as the Gutenberg Press, and how the question of "How do we save newspapers?" is the wrong question to be asking -- because newspapers are dying, and that process probably can't be stopped. The question should be, "How do we replace the essential function of newspapers?"

And the scary answer is: We don't know yet.

( Ganked from BoingBoing )

Comments

[kevynjacobs.livejournal.com]

> Makes me damn glad that Kady and I are both out of the biz for good.

Me too. Kady knows I have predicted the demise of dead tree editions for a long, long time... as New Media pioneers, she and I were there for (and part of the cause of) the death of the newspaper. It wasn't a popular opinion for me to express around the newsroom, but I could see this day coming.

Your "equivalent of PBS" is an interesting idea. Over the next few years, we're going to see a lot of experiments.

I'd join the experimentation, but I'm just not a reporter.