One of the Big Questions
This article in the Wall Street Journal offers a real thumbsucker to those of us of the newspaper persuasion:
"The challenge for newspapers is for them to figure out what they can provide that isn't being provided by the Internet and CNN," says David Cross, a director at Zyman Group, an Atlanta marketing consultant that recently advised the newspaper industry.Cross is speaking in the context of the advertising market, not news. But it's a good question for those of us in the news side of the bidness, as well.
One thing we can provide? Local news, and a lot of of it. And that's what most of our news staff is devoted to doing. Subsets of that include the community news that you and your neighbors are interested in, written, we hope, so as to entice even people who aren't your neighbors to read it, and local watchdog journalism (because "60 Minutes" can't be everywhere, and besides, there's that whole Dan Rather document thing).
Will we always be providing this news on dead trees? "Always" is a long time, but so far, predictions of the demise of print have proved premature. But my co-workers and I are trying to develop the kind of journalistic competence that crosses medium lines (or is, as the geeks say, "platform-neutral"). That means we want to be the ones who bring you the best-reported, best-written, best-illustrated, best-designed local news, whether that be via print, video, audio, online, modeling clay or any combination of the above.
If we can do that, and I'm confident we can, then we can live in harmony with the Internet and cable news for a long, long time to come.
