First Draft by Tim Porter

Digital Age, Analog Thinking

Once again, I’m jammed with work so posting has been light, but if you haven’t yet seen Vin Crosbie’s excellent article in Online Journalism Review about the future of newspapers – printed and electronic – then go read it.

Crosbie says with depth what I’ve said many times more succinctly: Newspapers as a mass medium are dying. The future is in class – and Crosbie argues that technology enables a class to be as small as one person. Here is a highlight:

“The real solution for the industry's future doesn't revolve around simply adding multimedia to generic editions. It instead will require that the newspaper industry:

1. Use new technologies to match the newspaper's existing cornucopia of content to satisfy each individual reader's unique mix of interests
2. Understand that neither newsprint nor the Web nor digital editions nor wireless is the answer, but that the true convergence of all those into a single unitary product not only is necessary but likely within 10 years
3. Focus less on the industry's ability to produce content and more on its unique service of delivering to people a complete package of content -- a change that requires newsrooms and corporations to go beyond traditional definitions of ‘news’ or ‘syndicated sources.’”

Read it all.

Posted by Tim Porter at March 5, 2004 07:16 AM