Newspapers and the internet, the crisis continues

Some technology bloggers think the San Francisco Chronicle is in trouble, and reflect on newspaper in general.  Tim O'Reilly started the ball rolling.  Dave Winer thinks problems are connected to how journalism produces reporters, and how it responds to web 2.0. Doc Searls takes a different tack.

What's interesting about this discussion is how it repeats the past decade of history, then adds a current layer.  We've been seeing many of these arguments for years, now - registration is a pain, journalists aren't trained for the new world (like grad students becoming profs), etc.  The live web, citizen journalism, now that's more recent.

Every week we listen to a local public radio show on news media, called The Media Project.  I wonder if they'll catch this debate.

Comments

[Steven Kaye]

Dave Winer notes:

Why? Because journalism like everything else that used to be centralized is in the process of being distributed. In the future, every educated person will be a journalist, as today we are all travel agents and stock brokers.

Except that's not true. There's certainly disintermediation as an option, but plenty of people still use middlemen for travel arrangements and stock trades, because it's more convenient and/or they value the expertise those people bring.

[Tom Haymes]

Even the smartest person needs an editor - if for no other reason than as a reality check/alternative viewpoint on the subject being discussed. This is an essential problem with the blogosphere. There is some excellent stuff out there but you have to be your own editor and that is not always the most efficient/effective process.

Also, there are a lot of people out there who still believe everything they read - even online (I am astounded what my students will buy). Newspapers are not perfect in this regard (they make mistakes too) but they are generally better than the average blogger making it up at 3 am in his/her living room.

The problem is figuring out how to make this work in a post-newspaper world. Perhaps the next thing will be editors-for-hire with people selling editorial services to bloggers and other online creators of content. That wouldn't necessarily be a bad gig. I wonder if anyone is doing it yet?

Just my two cents.

Tom