What happens when there are no newspapers?
May 13, 2009 at 5:10 am by Jim Johnson
By Jim Johnson
PoHo contributor and founder of The State of Sunshine blog
Jack Shafer has an excellent piece on Slate.com about the real impact Americans will see when newspapers across the country stop.
His article, Life After Newspapers: Learning from the 1962-63 New York newspaper strike, includes good insight:
No conversation about newspapers’ dismal present is complete without some anguished mention of how democracy will go off the rails unless the press is there to set it straight … But even though the 1962-63 strike upended New York, neither the dozen newspaper accounts I’ve read about the strike nor the histories or memoirs from the era that I’ve pulled down from my shelf make it sound as though democracy and governance disappeared when the New York dailies’ lights went out.
Instead, journalists and publishers improvised, and readers, parched for news, features, entertainment, and advertising, experimented with finding new sources.
This time, however, the new sources are not the solution they are actually the problem.
Jeff Jarvis, author of BuzzMachine, has a saying: “If the news is that important, it will find me.” To some extent I agree.
Journalism, and the larger news world, will not disappear. But it will change. I will get my news from a number of places — each with a particular specialty.
The future of a news organization, be it mainstream (Tampa Tribune, St. Petersburg Times, or WTSP Channel 10) or an alternative media (Creative Loafing), will be the same. Find a niche and specialize. Stop trying to cast a wide net by providing news that is a mile wide and an inch deep… be THE source for a subject or very narrow range of related subjects, and readers will be there in droves. Being just like every other organization, reporting everything to everyone, is a losing proposition.
News organizations are scared. Darn scared. The revolution is coming and only a few will survive.
