Enough With This Web Stuff Already. A Newspaper’s Lament in a Sea of Change.
April 8th, 2008 | by Brad King |The relationship between the Web and print staffs (and yes, it’s still plural) is always going to be contentious, at least until the print folks realize that the king is dead. Long live the king.
I’m reminded of this while perusing American Journalism Review, reading this article, Enough is Enough, a piece ostensibly about the need for newspapers to hold off on editorial cuts.
I’m for that, in a manner of speaking. I think it’s high time that newspapers looked to restructure their entire office, cutting some jobs while including more high-tech production so that journalists can do journalism and technologist can do technology.
Why is this necessary? Well, paragraph two pretty much summed up why every new media type in the country is fleeing newspapers and other traditional media.
If this is actually John Morton’s defense of journalism, I would suggest everyone start looking for another job.
True, a lot of the stuff that no longer appears in print can now be found on newspaper Web sites for those with the ability and patience to look for it, using time that could be spent actually reading a newspaper. Web television listings are a particular pain, requiring multiple manipulations to learn what a glance at a printed page provides.
Morton’s case is essentially this, although I’m not sure he even realizes it: newspapers have done such a poor job of delivering data on the Web — in large measure because there isn’t anyone there who understands how people use the Web — that they can’t even create a simple database that would quickly and simply give you the information you need about a television program.
He would likely characterize his piece in a different way.
The piece goes on to point out — correctly — that we are going to be in a print and online world for the foreseeable future. Of that, I have little doubt.
As I disputed Wired’s Chris Anderson, I’ll dispute Morton’s claim as well: the switch won’t happen within two years, but within five-to-seven years, we’ll be living in a world where most people are receiving their “news” and “media” not on paper — but through digital means.
I wish I knew what it was going to look like, but I don’t. I do know that we’re likely headed to a time when papers face a very serious decline. It’s taken less than eight years for the number one music retailer to turn from brick-and-mortar into virtual.
This is the world we live in. And it’s not slowing down.
