Shirky on the collapse of newspapers
March 15, 2009 by John Proffitt · Leave a Comment
This is, hands down, the most important piece on the collapse of the newspaper industry that will be written all year:
- Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable (13 Mar 2009)
Clay Shirky succinctly wraps up the last 20+ years of media history in just a few pages and explains how and why the newspaper industry will ultimately disintegrate.
He points to a future for journalism, but admits it will be a messy future, much as the world of information control and dissemination was utterly upended in the 16th century with the application of the printing press.
This piece reminded me of a speech given by Michael Rosenblum at the IMA conference in 2007. I have a whole hour of his storytelling and exhortations to take action on video, but here’s a brief (3:30) clip of just one story of technological innovation:
For those still clinging to news-on-paper notions: prepare your eulogies. Technology transforms society, whether you like it or not. Your horses are dead. The bowmen are here.
For the last 15 years I've done what comes naturally to anyone with degrees in English, earth science and education: I taught high school for a year then worked as an IT pro in healthcare, banking, consulting and government contracting (of course!). But I also spent nearly 5 years in Alaska's largest public media company, taking the traditional radio / TV / statewide news operation online and realizing traffic gains of more than 700% in just 18 months. These days I simply turn over the occasional public media rock and tell you what I see.