A friend gave me Saturns’s Children by Charles Stross to read. I’ve read and liked CharlieStross in 2006 and 2005. I subscribed to his blog, liked, and I don’t remember why I unsubscribed. I returned to the blog today and decided to resubscribe. One of his articles linked a blog post by ClayShirky: Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable. I also used to read Clay Shirky in the past. He wrote excellent essays. Still does. I recommend the article Charles linked to.
Saturns’s Children by Charles Stross
Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable
Newspapers are going the way of the Dodo.
Let me just add this:
776 Responses to “Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable” ¹
Ok.
#Web #Publishing
(Please contact me if you want to remove your comment.)
⁂
I think the demise of newspapers is not about copyright infringements, it’s about content. It’s about the long tail and broadcasting vs. narrowcasting. Broadly circulating newspapers are just about the lowest common denominator and the mainstream.
I find Gary North’s explanation much better: http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north375.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north375.html
And now newspapers have also entered a economic death spiral: readership is declining because of unsatisfaying content, advertisement revenue is declining because of the web and declining readership, both lead to cuts in quantity and quality of the editorial staff which leads to less content et cetera. As a former journalist who entered the business in 1998 just when the rise of the web and the demise of newspapers begun, I could actually observe this trend real time.
Would I miss newspaper? Well, I like to hold them in my hand and read them at breakfest on saturday mornings. But I won’t miss the content. 90% of all stories don’t even touch my areas of interest and the rest usually make me angry because of inaccuracies, sloppy researching or very opinionated authors.
– Peter 2009-04-02 05:42 UTC