Comments on: Doc Searls is dead wrong on newspapers

By: Mathew

Mathew — Fri, 25 May 2007 23:32:20 +0000

Thanks for the comment, Doc. Not everyone would be as quick to admit they were wrong — and yes, you are right about newspapers still being multibillion-dollar businesses.

In any case, good on ya. And thanks again for those sunset shots.

By: Doc Searls

Doc Searls — Fri, 25 May 2007 23:18:19 +0000

Uncle.

As I said here …

http://doc.weblogs.com/2007/05/25#theyreRight

… you’re right. Locking up the current stuff is a bad idea. Mea bozo.

Still, bear in mind that newspapers remain a many-billion-dollar business. They aren’t going away soon, even if they are closer to 78s than mp3s (playing with the metaphor above). They need to engage, but not to abandon something that has long-standing and persistent value. Daily print is still that — for many folks, even if not for you, Kent and other young’uns.

Rock on,

Doc

By: Mathew

Mathew — Fri, 25 May 2007 23:12:36 +0000

I think you’re right, Tony. And Jason (Webomatica), I agree that books are different in many ways — and newspapers are being squeezed in the middle ground between time sensitive and the in-depth read.

By: Webomatica

Webomatica — Fri, 25 May 2007 22:01:06 +0000

In my mind, there is a big difference between books and newspapers. Newspapers are highly time sensitive, read once and throw away. Information is broken into short articles.

Books are meant to be read over and over and longer format; people want to keep and collect them.

I feel that newspapers (and anybody who writes for one) needs to decide if they’re going to move towards the shorter, timely, fast pace news world which is increasingly moving online, or move towards news magazines and books, where pieces are longer, more in depth and not as time sensitive. There’s room for both but this area in the middle that newspapers have traditionally occupied is a vanishing niche.

By: Tony Hung

Tony Hung — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:33:18 +0000

If I had the time today I would go on an awesome rant about exactly what you blogged about — but since I don’t, a comment will have to suffice.

Doc Searls, bless his soul, makes some valid points, but they are the opinion of a clear and shrinking minority.

Yes, newspapers won’t go away. And yes, there is a visceral pleasure of having something in your hand that can’t be matched by reading it on the screen.

But that doesn’t mean that it represents the opinion of the majority. And because, it in fact, represents the opinion of a shrinking *minority*, it would be absolutely disaster to court them instead of the growing majority of people — who, like Rob Hyndman — haven’t touched a newspaper in years.

Newspapers *will* always exist in some form or another, but they’ll be forced to change like every other media has when something new is introduced.

Radio is still with us, for example, but it serves a very different purpose than when it originally started, and will never ever have the same reach it once did.

Cheers
t @ dji