new life for news

Monopolies usually die by suicide, not homicide.  Often technology evolution is the knife, but it was the monopoly that left itself exposed to the blade, instead of using the blade to further their monopoly (it can be dangerous to not have competition).  However, we often just see the knife.  For example, Neil Henry identifies technology as the news killer in the SF Chronicle yesterday.  Neil makes some good points, but news is not dead.  Paper is dead.  Print monopolies are dying and ones that don't evolve will die (note: we can't comment online on Neil's article).  Most monopolies in any industry that are bloated (like the SF Chronicle appears to be) will die.  But news is by no means dead. 

No, technology itself is not the culprit, and news is not the victim.  We are in a transition period.  And part of this is out of the control of the newspapers - e.g. local advertisers have not yet embraced the online medium like they did the print medium.  But they will, and the fast evolving newspapers will help enable those advertisers to do so, and reap the rewards. 

And this is not a zero sum game for news or for skilled journalists.  The online medium can enhance the work of skilled journalists.  For example,  Neil laments: "...I can't help but fear a future, increasingly barren of skilled journalists, in which Google "news" searches turn up not news, but the latest snarky rants from basement bloggers, fake news reports from government officials and PR cleverly peddled in the guise of journalism..."  Bloggers, basement or otherwise, often host dialogues rather than publish monologues; the writer and the readers are part of a dynamic conversation.  Whom better than to host and instigate those conversations than the most talented journalists?  Can readers really not differentiate between news and PR? 

Rather I look forward to a future, increasingly full of skilled online journalists, in which Google searches, RSS, social networks, and new media turn up voices that are discussing topics that I'm interested in.  Often those voices will be talented journalists, and we won't just read their work and then throw away the newspaper.  We'll read it, gain access to the conversation that has developed around their work, and be able to participate in it.  Note that in a newspaper today often the brilliance of a talented journalist is buried in a ton of generic Associated Press content, and essentially dead on arrival.  Contrast that to the online medium - on this topic, we can instantly read interesting perspectives on a component of Neil's article from Scott Karp, John Battelle, and their readers.  The conversation is alive, interactive, and accretive.

So the future is already here to some degree.  News is not dead - far from it - news is actually gaining life and becoming much more dynamic and interactive .