The Atlantic ponders the end of the NYT, and doesn’t see the sky falling. Nor do I. People will probably scoff at my attitude, but will the world be less whole if we no longer have print newspapers? I find it curious that many so-called media reformers idealize the heyday of diverse newspapers and a literate public, yet these memories seem largely hallucinatory. With the exception of rare investigative reporting that has done some social good, most newspapers have historically been large business that served mostly as stenographers of power, reinforcing dominant myths, not challenging them. However, though I lost my newspaper addiction long ago, I do sympathize with those who enjoy spending the morning with their Times. I don’t mean to be so flip, but newspapers are already off my radar. It think there are enough independent investigative and citizen sites to pick up the slack and do an even better job (as Katrina and Mumbai demonstrated). Nonetheless, there are some big losers in this scenario: ethnic newspapers and those off the grid. Yet I suspect if there is a market for niche papers, they will survive.
End Times – The Atlantic (January/February 2009):
What would a post-print Times look like? Forced to make a Web-based strategy profitable, a reconstructed Web site could start mixing original reportage with Times-endorsed reporting from other outlets with straight-up aggregation. This would allow The Times to continue to impose its live-from-the-Upper-West-Side brand on the world without having to literally cover every inch of it. In an optimistic scenario, the remaining reporters—now reporters-cum-bloggers, in many cases—could use their considerable savvy to mix their own reporting with that of others, giving us a more integrative, real-time view of the world unencumbered by the inefficiencies of the traditional journalistic form. Times readers might actually end up getting more exposure than they currently do to reporting resources scattered around the globe, and to areas and issues that are difficult to cover in a general-interest publication.
PS I’m reposting Epic 2015 above as a reminder of how prescient that video was about the future of media
