Friday, April 15, 2005 11:30 AM
The American Society of Newspapers Editors has been meeting this week in Washington. One of the continuing points of reference during this week's meeting (as well as coverage of the meeting) has been a report in the
Carnigie Reporter by Merrill Brown, entitled "
Abandoning the News." The premise of the article is both simple and profound: "In short, the future of the U.S. news industry is seriously threatened by the seemingly irrevocable move by young people away from traditional sources of news."
The article only points to the emergence of weblogs as one of a multitude of new avenues beyond print publications through which people (especially younger generations) are "accessing and processing information." Nonetheless, for anyone interested in blawgs and the potential of the blawgosphere, the study is a fascinating and informative read.
In addition, don't think it is just the younger generation which is recognizing the profound changes afoot for traditional print media. In a speech before the Society yesterday, "Rupert Murdoch, one of the world's biggest newspaper proprietors, on Wednesday told American editors that they had all been 'remarkably complacent' about the effects of growing internet use on the newsprint industry [read source and full article at MSNBC]." Among other things, Mr. Murdoch went so far as to suggest that rather than just republishing their print editions to the web, large newspapers must become web "destinations" or "portals," similar to the models developed by Yahoo! and Google.
And, maybe this idea is not far-fetched. Beyond Mr. Murdoch's News Corp, other huge publishing enterprises such as the Tribune Company, Washington Post Corporation, Gannett Company, Knight-Ridder, Dow Jones Inc. and the New York Times Company, are all large cap players that have money to spend to retain and grow their business online. Indeed, as we recently saw in the Times 410 million dollar acquisition of About.com, and Gannett, Knight-Ridder and the Tribune Company combining to buy most of Topix.net, tentative steps towards building web destinations are already being made.
If these acquisitions are any indication, perhaps more of the print media is taking heed to Mr. Murdoch's comments and the Carnegie article than any of us realize. In the end, the publishing leaders of tomorrow may those with the most foresight today. Borrowing a quote from USA Today founder Al Neuharth: "Futuristic newspaper leaders must innovate and invest for potential big payoffs 10 or 20 years from now, not just with an eye on the next quarter or the next year." [source]