June 25, 2003
Why the Web is so Important for Newspapers
In an interview with British-based dotJournalism, Martin Nisenholtz, CEO of the New York Times Digital, offers a few opinions about the future of news:
New Media vs. Newspapers: "Electronic delivery will become more and more important both for commerce and for the consumer."
The Next Big Platform: "Smart phones will … particularly change news delivery."
Globalizing the First Amendment: "The web is the most important first amendment tool since the invention of language."
Blogging: "The web log and Wiki movements will have a growing impact on the public dialogue … blogs complement more mainstream sources."
The Web and the Future of News: "We are moving toward a much more distributed kind of news sourcing. This makes quality reporting and editing all the more important. In an atmosphere of information overload, editors make a great deal of sense."
Nisenholtz's last point is the most important for newspapers. When everyone can publish, when news media are omnipresent, when punditry carries the same weight as perspective, the value of quality journalism increases.
Newspapers are positioned, by virtue of their large newsgathering and distribution mechanisms, to best take advantage of this change, but they need to, as Nisenholtz put it, "embrace the web" and transition internally from defining their audience as mass instead of an emerging series of classes.
Links
dotJournalism Interview with Martin Nisenholtz