Newspapers are doomed, and they basically have themselves to blame for their sorry state of affairs. Perhaps more alarming, however, is the threat failing newspapers pose to journalism in the United States, and the larger threat to democracy. Robert McChesney and John Nichols lay out the crisis in U.S. media in their book, “The...
When we get to the newspaper unit in LBCC’s Media and Society class, one aspect of newspapers we agree that we like is how you happen upon stories, photos and other items that catch your interest as you turn the pages. You learn about things that you weren’t necessarily looking for. You become engaged...
Ted Rall spotlights the strategy that too many newspapers continue to cling to… … and another story tip from Reportr.net: Paywalls not the answer for newspaper online revenue… -rp-
In his final column for Editor & Publisher, Steve Outing takes a trip into newspapers’ recent past and offers some predictions for the industry’s future. As he notes, hindsight is always 20/20. Nevertheless, it’s interesting to explore what newspapers might have done to head off the calamity they face today and the future that...
New media guy Jeff Jarvis puts forth an interesting proposition: Bankrupt newspaper companies should use their bleak financial condition as an opportunity to take a bold step into the future. Ditch the presses and all the rest of their “old media” overhead and become entrepreneurial, going all-in online and better serving readers: Bankruptcy enables...
Anybody who has taken Media & Society knows what a huge fan I’ve become of Dave Eggers – educator, entrepreneur, writer, buccaneer… Besides his writing, I most admire his enthusiasm for the written word and his gung-ho quest to engage young people with reading, writing and publishing. Along those lines, here’s an e-mail Eggers...
New media advocate and journalism professor Jeff Jarvis has three words for the newspaper industry: You blew it. In one of the better rants laying out the ineptitude of the industry to adapt in the new millennium, Jarvis comments on the state of newspapers in this BuzzMachine missive in connection with the Newspaper Association...
Frank Blethen, publisher of the Seattle Times, will deliver the annual Tom McCall Lecture Thursday, April 2, in OSU’s LaSells Stewart Center, Southwest 26th Street and Western Boulevard in Corvallis. The talk begins at 7:30 p.m. The topic of his talk is “Reclaiming America’s Independent Press and Saving Democracy.” With the newspaper industry reeling,...
I don’t really have much to say about these videos. One chronicles the end of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in print, though it continues online. The other focuses on Denver’s Rocky Mountain News, which remains online in a state of suspended animation. (Former staffers of the Rocky Mountain News have just launched a new online...
It’s a sobering glimpse of reality and what may be in our future, but it’s also a compelling new post on Jeff Jarvis’ Buzz Machine. As the author of “What Would Google Do?” points out: I try to argue in my book that what we’re living through is instead a great restructuring of the...
