Dependence

A great post by Jules Crittenden about the Internet, blogs and print media.

The Internet is a thing of great and terrible beauty, the Gutenberg Revolution finally living up to its promise of free exchange of knowledge and information. A tremendous creative force that is also a destructive force. My own business is looking more like a shaky late stage Roman Empire, which was in its day the single stop for civilization, law and order, engineering and scientific knowledge, then torn apart by the barbarian hordes from which our civilization emerged, something better but still employing a lot of the conventions, devices, terminology of the old empire. The Internet is at the gates of journalism, and our walls are crumbling.

But the Internet is not in a position yet to replace the old media, because it can’t sustain the reporting infrastructure that newspapers and TV have. Mainly newspapers, which probably have put more people out doing more in-depth reporting and monitoring of events, business, government and society in general, and created a greater volume of information, for better or worse, than any other institution outside of government itself, while playing the role of watchdog, critic and gadfly.

The low cost of Internet advertising and the easy access to information it provides is killing newspapers, even as it feeds on their content, without replacing their reporting infrastructure with anything more than spotty boutique coverage … some great work, but nowhere near enough of it. The high cost of printing and distribution made newspapers the great mass advertising medium of their day, and subsidized all that newsgathering capacity. No longer true, when anyone can set up a website at virtually no cost, and anyone with a bright idea can walk away with large portions of old media’s lunch.

Simply shutting down print operations, which with distribution make up the vast majority of newspaper costs, and going strictly online with perhaps a limited vanity run of newsprint, remains non-viable. Internet advertising income potential so far is not sufficient to support multi-million dollar news organizations.

For those interested in this topic (as am I), Jules’ post is a very interesting read. Jules, of course, is both a blogger and a journalist for an American newspaper. In short, he knows what he is talking about.

I for one, criticize the MSM quite often. I believe that most major newspapers (and networks) have a progressive slant, which does not make me very happy. That being said, traditional media sources are, still, of major importance. Bloggers do not do original reporting, we are dependent on what the traditional media feed us with. They are still important, they are still necessary. Blogs (and websites in general) are a new media: they add something to the traditional media, they do not, or should not, replace them (at least not as long as it is impossible for newspapers to completely go online, while making a profit).