Comments on: Clay Shirky on the unavoidable revolution happening to newspapers

By: kevtop351

kevtop351 — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:13:05 +0000

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. Thomas Jefferson

the man who reads nothing at all is better than educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers. You guessed it, Thomas Jefferson

Just as with any other commerce, if the demand for it sinks, then so be it. This point is not shared by liberal/progressive, or whatever they want to call themselves. Too big to fall is their mantra. Really?

By: kevtop351

kevtop351 — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:04:20 +0000

All Journalism schools are run by liberals; so let the liberals support these newspapers. What has happened to the independence of thought? I think I know the answer; it’s destroyed in the first semester of Journalism classes, and replaced with a far left liberal indoctrination. The overwhelming majority of Americans – do not consider themselves to be liberals. Anybody have a rebuttal to this?

By: Julie Reynolds

Julie Reynolds — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:09:31 +0000

Actually, I found it oddly relaxing and reassuring… I always felt the sell-your-readers-to-the-advertisers model was a bizarre accident, as he puts it.

It’s like finally getting a definitive diagnosis from the doctor — we have no choice now but to buckle up and move on with those grand experiments!

By: MichaelJ

MichaelJ — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:18:03 +0000

Another interesting take this morning. Turns out the Daily News has just invested in millions of dollars for presses that print in full color on every page.

One more piece that says this is not a “Newspaper” or “Print is Dead” problem. Just a public news corporations that over extended themselves in the era of funny money problem. It may also be “the emperor has no clothes” situation.

Here’s the link to a Print trade site, that gives the story..
http://members.whattheythink.com/drjoewebb/drjoe258.cfm#2

It might be behind a pay wall. I put some snippets at my blog
http://sellingprint.blogspot.com/2009/03/print-dead-it-depends-on-who-you-ask.html

By: Anna Haynes

Anna Haynes — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:18:18 +0000

I bet there are some great and thoughtful comments to his post among the 148 responses, but since they’re dispersed among the trackbacks, I’m not going to take the time to look for them.

This part resonated with me -
“Revolutions create a curious inversion of perception. In ordinary times, people who do no more than describe the world around them are seen as pragmatists, while those who imagine fabulous alternative futures are viewed as radicals.
When reality is labeled unthinkable, it creates a kind of sickness…”

By: MichaelJ

MichaelJ — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 12:01:45 +0000

Thanks for posting. If you are interested in how this might play out from the Printing industries point of view..
http://toughloveforxerox.blogspot.com/2009/03/lessons-from-past-and-printernet.html

By: Christopher Mims

Christopher Mims — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 02:07:20 +0000

I hope people take away from this the core message, which is not “newspapers are dead” (I mean they are) but “everyone must experiment, because there is no alternative” and “news has always been subsidized.”

In other words:

1) whatever replaces newspapers cannot be supported by ad revenue alone, because, as shirky notes, ad buys are now *too* efficient (not to mention the loss of many kinds of ads that used to subsidize serious journalism)

2) whatever replaces newspapers must be subsidized by something else.

I have long argued that it’s not new forms of news we need — it’s new forms of business models for supporting news. *That* is where the relevant innovation will come — the rest is window dressing.