Re: How to Save the Newspapers

From: "Stan" 
> Here's an interesting little OpEd piece.
> 
> http://tech.yahoo.com/news/zd/20090811/tc_zd/243073
> 
> Cheers!
> 
> Stan

I hope I do not unpset you, Stan, if I class the article a piece of junk opinion. I have worked in many types of media, and I also have some financial and business background.

The first thing to understand is that there isn't one mass called newspaper publishing. There are many different forms, formats, audiences and business models. So the experience of the wrtiter of the article is valid - for his experience.

The idea that serious professional newsgathering is a simple little 'have laptop, will travel' operation shows no knowledge at all of big newspapers which, let me emphasize, are the backbone of effective reporting and news gathering [tv does not have that strength in news]. Newspapers have a lot of shrinking to do, that's true. So has everything else! 

But there is much further for newspapers to go before they are likely to reach a condition that is no longer viable. There has been around 60 years of almost unchecked expansion. Now the contraction has arrived; just another stage in revising business models. But also a challenge to the gannets that thought they could suck the last penny out of publishing in general.

Just to make one other point that underlines my criticism of the article. He chooses the Economist and Vogue to show how right thinking could have saved them all. But The Economist has for many decades been the prime resource for economic and political economic thinking. At his time it has even more appeal - and therefore is a magnet for advertising. Vogue serves the richer elements and the straiu in those circles has been much less.

It will certainly be interesting to see in ten and twenty years how the dust settles and what size the newspaper industry will be, and to what extent 'free' has been reduced. It is clear  the by the end of this year more than half the currently easily accessible newspaper material online will be on subscription bases.

Joseph Harris  -  Debt Control Man
author: Control Your Debt Crisis on Your Own Terms
blog: http://debtcontrolman.wordpress.com
http://www.controlyourdebtcrisis.co.uk
debt dictionary: http://www.controlyourdebtcrisis.co.uk/debtwiki/


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