The Future of News Papers
Steven Johnson has a wonderful piece on the future of information. I really enjoyed it, but I do think that he overlooks an extremely important point.
The inherent digital divide created merely as a result of the cost and involvement that being tech savvy or even computer literate require. Currently there are millions of people who don’t have access to the internet so the future of information is not only reliant on what papers do, but how they respond to customers who will be marginalized if they cease to exist.
For instance, Johnson suggests-
“But I think it’s just as possible that all this innovation elsewhere will free up the traditional media to focus on things like war reporting because they won’t need to pay for all the other content they’ve historically had to produce. This is Jeff Jarvis’ motto: do what you do best, and link to the rest.”
However, if papers limit their content and link to the rest, then what’s to be of segment of our population who doesn’t have access to the rest? Are they then only bound to consuming that which the paper decides to print? I’ll write more on this- it’s a really important conversation and although I take issue with this point, I highly recommend the piece.