I don't get it. Print media is dying because, presumably, advertisers are going online, and the readers are going online, and nobody is reading the paper anymore...so what is the problem?

Case in point, I've never read the Rocky Mountain News, but here we are watching their story online. The world still needs journalism. There are still stories to expose in 2009. I don't buy the argument that dead papers means less informed people. If these people's lives are wholly defined by the paper that their words are printed on, then that's a problem. It's not the problem they'd like me to believe, though.

agreed, tired of the BS fear-mongering over the idea that if papers die, america's freedom dies with them. pish posh...I guess we'd all better hurry up and buy a crappy Saturn and subscribe to a bunch of newspapers that'll be most useful as pet poop pads

A tree killing source of litter written by mediocre journalists is gone. What's the issue? (it's certainly not an issue of Rocky Mountain News cuz its gone hahaha)

No, they are absolutly correct that this matters. Other wise all of your news opinions and knowledge will be derived from the forums at POE news(generally I find handy bits here and there but all together its just a big fag dance of bickering opinions were points are won on asking about the other persons take on the word "the", and this is one of the better ones out there). Need a new source of information about evolution and its fight to reverse its teaching in schools. Go to Jesushatesdarwin@blog.com or some other nonsense. Also the fact that this is one of my favorite sites for news, why do you think Chet posted this. The Evil news is dependent on these journalist, and without a paper there is no longer a means to support them as they investigate. No journalist, no Evil news, people.

What should happen is the news papers that exist should maybe make a way to make their content online exclusive and make sure that they get rolayties from drudge before he post it for free. Lots of problems about this I know(with a major one being information is slowed down and less accessable), but since the model is changing to internet, its one of the few ways I see of actual journalist exisiting in a world of sound bite journalism on T.V. which does shit to educate what is actually going on with a topic(sorry Mr. Food, but your basic advise and pointers doesn't help me make that soufle')

Also the non-profit paper idea described on the podcats at " I WANT MY ROCKY.com" is a good idea.

Again, I'm really not following this logic.

"No, they are absolutly correct that this matters. Other wise all of your news opinions and knowledge will be derived from the forums at POE news"

You mean, the site where we discuss NEWS ARTICLES WRITTEN BY JOURNALISTS? Without the content written by the very people in this video we would have nothing to discuss. In the dying print media, this discussion is limited to those "letters to the editor" where one or two select blowhards get to sound off a day or a week after the story has run. The internet has improved the news game to the point where print is rightfully dying.

I challenge your claim that when all the papers go under all we will have left are shitty blogs. Josh Marshall at TPM gave me more relevant and useful election coverage than any print publication. There will always be room for quality analysis and reporting, and there is still money to be made.

Why does print matter? Because web-journalism is shit.

The profit on your average website can't support paying decent journalists a decent wage to write decent articles, much less a newsroom full of them.

Look at Drudge. Biggest news web-blog on the net, horribly sourced, terribly biased and links to stories written by a coked-out high-school drop-out who's been up for 72 hours hitting refresh on townhall.com, that's the future of 'journalism' without print media.

Advertising on the web is also dodgy, it pays zippo and never serves local businesses. Where is YOUR TOWN BAKERY going to advertise now? Is there a website that reaches 60+ folks who don't own computers and want to buy a cake for Jimmy's 11th Birthday?

I challange you to actually go to our forums and find a post that has actual insight instead of just opinion on a constant basis. like I said, its there, but generally the forums end with someone calling someone out for various resons(like now) and garerns little information for others, its just amusing. Its not the ideal to learn by.

Most of the content that gets our discusions and blogs going is started because of the journalism. journalist go out, investigate all sides, report, and then we have an opinion to go by. Sites like POE news and Drudge do not hire journalist(it be awsome if they did) but instead have news CREATED BY JOURNALIST, and posted. Without these people doing this work, there is no education to the public(like that happens anyway).

sure you win your challange, we will have blogs, talking heads at the 24 hour news networks, and old men at coffee shops, but without a way to support superior journalism we will have shit. National election? shit that only comes one evey four years. Good coverage, but your local news source has way more information that is better obtained and more informative then anything national. And as a citizen, you have more power and ability to influence government at the local level. Unless you are a big wig lobbyist or congressman(or something of that nature) local news should be important to you. If not you are either 3/5th's retarded or really young and naive.

Print journalism is dead because it's obsolete. Printing things on paper intended for mass distribution becomes laughably hard to imagine on even a relatively short time horizon. It may be hang on for decades, who knows? but it's on its way out. The internet is the only game left. But just because print is dead, the need for professional news organizations that bring people together in a collaborative atmosphere and actually PAY them to report is as strong as it ever was. Journalism isn't a wiki. Dumb opinions delivered for free at the speed of light remain dumb opinions.

The problem is a technological gap that nobody knows how to fill. The fact is, nobody will pay for news online. Sorry, Louis, they've tried it. Everyone has tried it. Nobody pays for "exclusive content" on the web. Everyone just migrates to free sources, even if those sources are inferior. That's why every online news source is currently surrounded by ads. But ad revenue is collapsing, and was never very strong on the web in the first place. Hence the problem.

Fortunately, people appear to be willing to pay to have electronic news delivered to mobile devices. They've done actual research to prove this, well before it was even a practical option (people ain't been sitting around waiting to die, after all.) The difference between going to a computer and logging on to a site, and turning the phone on in the morning and finding it there waiting for you is huge. Print journalism existed in the first place around the concept of easy mobility, and it will again.

So everyone is desperately and vocally waiting for devices like the iPhone and Kindle to become commonplace (i.e. affordable and actually usable.) This will take years, years during which there is, unfortunately, a recession. Many - even most - newspapers will have a hard time surviving. They will need to strip coverage, rely on AP and Reuters more, and pander what's left to a more commercial interest. Given the paucity of alternatives, we may be in for a dark age.

I have an app on my phone that delivers the latest local news stories directly to me on demand. I put in my zip code and there you go. It even has ads. My phone also has a GPS signal, so you can deliver LOCAL BUSINESS ADVERTISEMENTS to me based on where I am at that very moment. The future of local business advertisements is in sites like Yelp, not in a newspaper, anyway.

The strongest argument here seems to be that the old way of making money in print doesn't apply to online journalism, but again, I don't really have a problem with that. The 60 year olds who don't have computers are dying too...

There also seems to be a strong "PRINT MEDIA GIVES POWER TO THE PEOPLE" slant here which I find to be hilarious due to the newspaper's history with Hearst and the same oligarchy that exists pretty much everywhere else.

Again, no way to pay for journalist, no way to see or read real news. Enjoy the world of the "crawl info age".


Thanks for the info allcaps.

Yes, truly there is no way to pay for journalism without classified ads. What?

"But ad revenue is collapsing, and was never very strong on the web in the first place. Hence the problem."

Moot of 4chan would love to agree with you.

I'm certain reality is pretty hitting them pretty hard. So much so that there career gifts are helping them balance.

Its loss of revenue to the internet that is doing them in, not being taxed too much Enjoy. Interestingly they might have to become a non-profit news paper(which sounds like a good idea to overcome taxes, I mean a, get back to work).

Newspapers are special because of what they do. You are also special. Learn to empathize,