Writing obits for newspapers
The recent round of obits for the venerable newspaper began with Michael Malone who pronounced newspapers dead and said that "they will never come back" in his "Farewell to newspapers" column. Jay Rosen then took up the running with a dramatic posting, "Laying the Newspaper Gently Down to Die". Next, like a thunderclap, came Rupert Murdoch's address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors last week in which he "spoke more like a pony-tailed, new-age technophile than a septuagenarian old-media god-like figure, Mr Murdoch said that news 'providers' such as his own organisation had better get web-savvy, stop lecturing their audiences, 'become places for conversation' and 'destinations' where 'bloggers' and 'podcasters' congregate to 'engage our reporters and editors in more extended discussions.' He also criticised editors and reporters who often 'think their readers are stupid'. "
Those quotes come from the current issue of The Economist, which is adding its voice to the clamour about the future of journalism with "Yesterday's papers". Bottom line: "What is clear is that the control of news — what constitutes it, how to prioritise it and what is fact — is shifting subtly from being the sole purview of the news provider to the audience itself. Newspapers, Mr Murdoch implies, must learn to understand their role as providers of news independent of the old medium of distribution, the paper." So, who'll be next to pen an obit for the ink, money and circulation bleeding industry?
