The Future...

I hope my future blogs keep class conflict to a minimum. I apologize to anyone who may have been offended by my previous posts. I understand my opinion may not be shared by others. Let me just reiterate that I do not wish bad things of newspapers. On the contrary, I consider my thoughts on the demise of newspapers and "realistic." Again, this is just one man's opinion...

I found an interesting interview with young journalists/interns/students that I think all of you should read. The article is somewhat relevant to what we have discussed in class.

Here's what one interviewee had to say about the future of journalism:

If newsrooms still exist in 25 years, and they're still institutional newsrooms ... You'll have two different news staffs –- if you still have print -- let's pretend that there's still newspapers, but they're very small and they're tabloids and they cover things in short-form style.

So, you have two newsrooms, one that covers Web exclusively ... and they cover the same stories and they cover them differently and the cover them exclusively for the Web. And then you'll have people who are 50 years old in the newsroom, producing a small, tabloid newspaper.

I thought this was pretty accurate. I see newspapers becoming gradually smaller as time goes on, until they collapse completely, stay small and cover local stories, or for publish solely for special editions/topics. Of course, it would be WONDERFUL is print stayed in business forever. Another interviewee:

The NYT futurist (Michael Rogers) who just stepped down — a phenomenal guy who was at SND Boston last year -- he said the one thing he learned after five years of being probably on the most cutting edge of the most cutting edge company was paper is going to be really hard to replace. And he spent 20 years of his life talking about it.

I think (paper) will be around for a little bit.

I sure hope so. To keep newspapers alive, I think they need to quit focusing on the "average" readers and start going after the people who LIKE to read. Those are the people that will stick with newspapers. Don't be afraid to print long articles. Don't be afraid of Black & White. I love to read newspapers, and while I like magazines and pictures and graphics and blah blah, I'm never afraid to dive into a lengthy article if it looks interesting. Keep the papers small. Keep the papers efficient. Keep them full of text. Leave the graphics and images to the web edition stuff. Leave the graphics and the images to the magazines.

Unrelated: you might want to read this, too. It's about blogs and journalism careers...Pretty interesting.

Also unrelated: I just browsed the web and found an interesting copy editing website. A hilarious entry:

Entry No. 125: A burro is an ass. A burrow is a hole in the ground. Editors know the difference.

Richard Wright, keyboardist/founder of rock group Pink Floyd died last week. He will be missed. I was reading this blog and came across an interesting entry. Apparently the AP got some of Pink Floyds discography wrong when writing of Wright's death. On top of that, the Huffington Post's headline for the story was "Pink Floyd guy dies".... how insulting...

Well, comment away...