"Newspapers have a future, if they can avoid being 'click whores'" (click to read it!)
When Horsey decides he has something to say that takes more than just a cartoon, he has my support and attention.
Media has great responsibility to the people who read, watch and listen to us, far more important to our society than merely making money.
And, as the history and economics of newspapers has proven, when we do it responsibly big money comes too.
Who's going to fill their shoes?
2 comments:
The business model of newspapers and other news media has always been that information has worth. When newspapers were in their prime, getting good information was not easy and the price of a newspaper was a tremendous bargin. Now, with universal connectivity, multiple 24 hour news channels and the ability to replicate any piece of information within minutes of availability, the value of information has dropped significantly. The final paradigm for what was traditionally print media has not been resolved yet but it will probably involve more niche focus for differentiation from other content providers as well as a multi-media approach. A similar experimentation and evolution is also taking place with other forms of media which has given us examples such as MS-NBC (Microsoft & NBC?), AOL-Time Warner, and Murdoch's News Corporation which owns something of everything (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_Corporation#Holdings).
A paramount function of a newspaper is not really to provide a public service in any generic sense. It is to serve the public in the best business sense.
The notion that a buisness has a duty to provide unprofitable public services is just a misunderstanding of business.
The Hutchins report that called for newspapers to provide unprofitable public services arose from the guilt that grew out of newspapers earning stratopheric monopoly profits I'm pretty sure.
Post a Comment