A future of news

Howard Kurtz has this at washingtonpost.com, an uncharacteristically pessimistic reflection on the future of the newspaper, that "daily compendium delivered to your doorstep" Kurtz has spent his whole life working for and, unsurprisingly, finds "indispensable." I suppose Chrysler factory workers find Chrysler factories "indispensable," too.

A big chunk here:

Newspaper folks may have an inflated view of their self-importance, but what they do has an impact beyond their readers and advertisers. Local TV isn't likely to expose a crooked mayor, as the Detroit Free Press did. Bloggers aren't going to reveal secret CIA prisons.

"Society doesn't need newspapers. What we need is journalism," Shirky argues. That is way too glib. The online cacophony that would follow the demise of newspapers would be fast, furious and fun, insightful and opinionated. But let's face it: Who would pay for a Baghdad bureau, or even a bureau in Albany or Annapolis?

I still have the buffet mentality, the idea that news, sports, entertainment and so on can make for a tasty package. Buffet folks like to get a fill, a briefing, a contextual sense of what's important. But so many others in the iTunes age would rather cherry-pick, clicking on one story and rushing off, window shoppers who rarely come inside.

A little condescending, maybe, Mr. Kurtz? Like it or not, the days of deciding what's front page news for everybody is over. I confess: I fall into the category of people Kurtz calls cherry pickers. And why shouldn't I get my Red Sox news in the Boston Globe, politics in Washington and business in New York? Heavy on nogstalgia, Kurtz is light on ideas about how to capitalize on newspapers' new reality, even though those papers, with professional reporters and historically high readerships, are obviously in a unique position to compete and as able to innovate as anybody.


Instead, Kurtz asks,

But what about the old rolled-up, flip-through-the-pages, take-it-on-the-subway product? In a world where the most obscure factoid can be searched in seconds, is most of America now immune to those charms?

Yes. Isn't it time to get over it?




A related extra here....This comes from a Q&A with The Post's newest Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, Eugene Robinson. Kind of nasty question followed by a great answer.

Alexandria, Va.: Newspapers are going the way of the buggy whip-- there is simply no use for them anymore, except perhaps by the retired, unemployed or independently wealthy who have the time necessary to wade through them. The handwriting on the wall is obvious. Why try to save them? (Besides the obvious self-preservation answer.) There will be no dearth of commentary concerning the state of our democracy on the Internet and in other media.

Eugene Robinson: Nearly 700,000 people buy The Washington Post every day -- and considerably more on Sundays. Obviously they're not all retired, unemployed or wealthy -- but what would it matter if they were? What business sense would it make not to sell them a newspaper?

This is Robinson's original column on the Times Co./Globe negotiations, from which this Q&A originated.