You can’t go anywhere online these days with being affronted by yet another hand-wringing essay, speech, or diatribe about how screwed we will all be when "journalism" disappears (today’s is from Leonard Downie of the Washington Post).
Of course, these tales of woe aren’t really about "journalism," at all. They’re about newspapers and change.
"Journalism" is alive and well, as evidenced by the still-robust health of companies like Bloomberg and Reuters, the survival of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and other great news organizations, the hyper-growth of online news and commentary sites, and the rise of social media. And change is inevitable.
It bears noting that, almost without exception, these hand-wringers are written by people who run or own newspapers. Thus, in the interest of fairness, they should probably be accompanied by a disclaimer that goes something like this:
And, yes, if we don’t save newspapers, my fortune, ego, and life’s work will go down the tubes, my shareholders will get killed, and many of my employees will get sacked–and like hell I’m going to let that happen without a fight.
The Internet is doing to the news business the same thing it has done to dozens of other industries: disrupting it. Specifically, it is taking an old, inefficient system and making it much faster and more efficient.
