“That’s the most hopeful thing you can say about print journalism...old people are living longer"

[marmar]

from the NY Times:



Op-Ed Columnist
Slouching Towards Oblivion

By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: April 25, 2009


LOS ANGELES

Maybe it’s because I’m staying at the Sunset Tower on Sunset Boulevard, but I keep thinking of newspapers as Norma Desmond.

Papers are still big. It’s the screens that got small.

Now that everybody can check their iPhones and laptops for news that personally interests them, now that they can Google, blog and tweet, as well as shop — and stalk — on Craigslist, old-school newspapers seem like aging silent film stars, stricken to find themselves outmoded by technology.

As a disgusted Desmond asks from behind dark glasses: “And who have they got now? Some nobodies — a lot of pale little frogs croaking pish-posh.”

Eric Schmidt, the Google C.E.O., reassured me that newspapers would last 500 years, but only for a boutique market: commuters taking trains, cabs and subways on the East Coast and in cities like London and Paris.

“For somebody who lives in the suburbs,” he said, “especially if they’re driving and they have kids screaming in the back seat, why would they prefer a physical newspaper over something that is more personal.” ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/opinion/26dowd.html?hpw

[KharmaTrain]

1. I Just Love Newspapers Writing Their Own Obituaries...

Newspapers didn't just start to decline last week, this has been a long time coming. Technology has changed, lifestyles have changed. With television and then the internet, people no longer wait for news...they no longer rely on a paper or one source. For many years, papers felt they were the gatekeepers...if you wanted news, they were the only ones who could give it to you...but that's no longer the case.

Even worse is when bad times hit print, they cut costs by letting go of many reporters...cutting down on local reporting (which was their real value) and loaded up with features and sideshows...trying to lure "lifestyles" rather than readers. When my local paper put the crime of the boooooshie regime on Page 20 but stories about Drew Peterson on Page one day after day...it went from news to gawking.

I still love to pull open a paper and read it...but that is if there's something to read. Many of my favorite columnists and reporters in the local papers have been "outsourced" or retired. But then I long ago "outsourced" my information gathering.

[Mist]

2. Newspapers have been moving away from actual reporting for years. The main reason

I got a computer a few years ago was to get news from a variety of viewpoints and sources, all of which seem to have the newspapers beat.