Yesterday somebody asked me to explain my thoughts on the future of news in a few sentences. Here's what I sent them:
I think the news industry is a paradox right now. On one hand, there
is almost no good news coming from old media companies: Circulation is
declining (http://tinyurl.com/6j37sh) and great folks are leaving the industry
(http://tinyurl.com/6s5acj). MSM outlets will only continue to get
smaller, and many will die.
On the other hand, we as consumers are getting more and better
information than ever before. Flickr, Yelp, YouTube, Blogger, Twitter,
etc, etc. provide content that is as rich, honest, and authentic as
MSM, often more so. Also, the networks these tools are built into now
act as filters, so it's simple to find the best, most relevant stuff.
I think there's one big unanswered question: How will communities pay
for the type of investigative journalism and hard news coverage that
needs to be done, but that bloggers don't do? My hunch is that this
problem will be solved by open source/non-profit journalism projects.
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