The Daily News has been sold! The Rupert paper which provides news to those who don't read hackingthemainframe or other local news sites and occasionally has fresh local news (providing a long weekend doesn't get in the way) for Podunkians, has been handed off to a new band of Broadhseet Barons. Formerly in the Hollinger stable (a trinket in the Conrad Black Empire) our humble little publication finds itself and 36 other British Columbia properties sold to Glacier Ventures International.
It is a group that has been busy of late, collecting small to mid size newspapers across the land. The current owners at Hollinger will find 121.7 million dollars in their corporate accounts shortly, to be used to streamline the more than 100 properties in the Chicago area; all which is left of the once dominant chain of world newspapers that Lord Black once ruled liked Admiral Nelson on the high seas.
But the transfer of millions of dollars and head office affections is not why our hard working reporting class at the Podunkian should be thinking outside of the newspaper box for future employment prospects. Rather it’s this wired behemoth you are using right now, that will spell the doom of the local newspaper industry in communities world wide.
Two recent articles have defined the newspaper business of today as a staggering overweight giant, destined to crash and burn in a most remarkable fashion. The new media of the World Wide Web, with its multi layered presentations and instantaneous fix for information junkies; will render the idea of waiting for a daily newspaper to be akin to waiting for the return of the town crier to your main square.
Michael Kinsley of the Slate site delivers a eulogy for the mainstream press, as he describes the ever evolving internet as the new broadsheet for a whole new generation. In a delicious bit of irony, the article like many other Slate items, is available as a podcast on the Slate site, just an indication of how things have rapidly changed in the news delivery world.
In his article, he details the speed of change that the newspapers of today seem incapable of keeping up with. This quote from the article succinctly explains the dilemma that the newspaper industry is about to face: “Once, I would drive across town if necessary. Today, I open the front door and if the paper isn't within about 10 feet I retreat to my computer and read it online. Only six months ago, that figure was 20 feet. Extrapolating, they will have to bring it to me in bed by the end of the year and read it to me out loud by the second quarter of 2007.” Are you ready Podunk for Earle Gale and James Vassallo to drop by for dinner and recap?
Kinsley's finishing thoughts are enough to send an advertising rep off to EI, so as to get a head start on the rest of the ink stained crowd soon to follow.
As fatalistic as the Slate piece is for newspaper people, a treatise by Joseph Epstein is even more depressing for those that toil in paper and ink still. Epstein pulls out statistics that should make publishers the world over contemplate a nice spot on the lifeboats as the reluctant to change papers continue to bleed subscribers and casual readers alike. Even more disturbing is that those in the younger demographics don’t even consider newspapers as a vital form of information flow, which will certainly reduce any chances of the industry to hold its numbers of today, let alone grow.
A newspaper today no longer forms opinion, nor provides the final word of information. Increasingly readers are moving on to other forms of information retrieval, adapting the increasing choices to their individual needs.
It’s been a steep ride down from the hey days of the seventies when journalism was the thing to do, to the news providers of today who clamor for our attention, many with salacious stories, dedicated more to titillation than in forcing us to think of important issues for society.
Gone it seems are the days of treating the reader as someone who is more than capable of understanding the nuances of a story, not needing to have things dumbed down so much as to slip into irrelevance?
There’s still some good reading out there , but much of it now comes through your computer portal as opposed to coming to your front door. It’s a battle that the old style papers are most likely doomed to lose, the ones that can adapt the fastest to the changing times are the ones that will at least muddle along as best they can.
The rest will disappear replaced by the new wave of internet journalists, home based bloggers, podcasters and whatever new form of information delivery is coming next. It makes for some rather bad news for pulp mills, but good news for those longing for intelligent thought and a return to ideas and provocative reading.
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