from the heard-it-all-before dept
The New Yorker is running a longish piece about the state of the newspaper industry. It's a decent read, though it doesn't cover any new ground. Newspapers are dying, industry vets are fretting and whining, the internet is rising, but doing so in a different way — a more opinionated, more community-oriented way. There you go. The entire 6,500 word piece in one sentence. What's most amazing to me is how the folks who are complaining and whining about it all can't seem to separate out the fact that "the industry is changing" from the idea that "journalism is dying." As Matthew Yglesias points out, all it's really saying is that the future will be different, and the more you look at the details, the more reason to think that it will be better, not worse.
Robert Niles pulls out a keen observation on the topic over at OJR. It's not that the news business is dying, it's just that, for the first time in history "newspapers" have some competition. They've survived 300 years without any real competition — other than maybe from a small number of other newspapers. This is the first time that they're facing competition from non-newspapers, that are providing the same essential services they have, but are doing it in a different way. And if there's one thing that should be clear from nearly all of economic history, it's that when you get real competition, the end results tend to be much better and much more innovative — which is exactly what we're seeing in the news industry.
It's certainly clear that journalism isn't dying (despite the whines). We've seen that the market for good journalists is incredibly competitive, with news organizations needing to pay top dollar to lure the best talent. And once the old school news professionals realize that news means something different these days than it did when they were the only players in town, there are plenty of ways to provide news that people want, and to make a profit doing so. The news business isn't dying. It's thriving. It's just that it's more competitive. And that's a good thing.
