Why I Don't Work at a Newspaper
I've been catching up on my pmarca blog reading. (That's Marc Andreessen for the uninitiated.) We haven't hung out in forever, and it's a nice way to feel like we are. Andreessen is a great read because he reads everything in the world. He's the kind of guy who sends you a zillion white papers during an IM "chat." (Back when I used IM....)
At any rate, check this out. The newspaper industry has suffered its worst drop in advertising revenues in 50 years. Think about that. Think about how many downturns we've had in 50 years. Think about the dot com bust. We're not even seeing an across the board ad downturn yet and this has happened. This is simply an insane structural change in what people want (way better content online, no messy newsprint fingers), what they're willing to pay for (not classified ads) and newspapers absolute inability to deliver. Memo to publishers: 5% RIFs and smaller paper size doesn't cut it. You need to rip up your whole damn org chart and start over.
It's interesting: I span the worlds of very very old media (a book) and new media (online video) with a column and a blog in between. The one thing I have never done, and never will, is work at a daily newspaper. The quality isn't there. The sense of entitlement is. And the business model is most definitely NOT.
Don't blame Craig Newmark for it either: Newspapers largely have not done their job to stay relevant. Think about it: Back in the day a newspaper was like Facebook. They were utilitarian and entertaining. Even if you didn't relish reading it cover-to-cover there were basic reasons you got one: Movie listings, classifieds, sports scores, stock tickers. One-by-one online has done those better, on demand and for free. So people have to want to read a paper. They have to enjoy it. Guess what? AP-inverted pyramid style isn't engaging writing.
Marc says unchecked this could become a huge problem. I think it's already been unchecked for decades.
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I think some picture of the problem with newspapers is shown by Irina Slutsky is my video "What Is New Media to You?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ig7itd9kg0
Posted by: Zenophon Abraham | April 28, 2008 at 02:48 AM