Dan Kennedy: The peoples’ presses. There’s no question that the large media institutions (Russell) Baker so loves are fading away, and we don’t yet know what will come next. “How the internet might replace the newspaper as a source of information is never explained by those who assure you that it will,” Baker writes. To which I can only respond (thus proving him right): It will. Journalism will survive, even as the vessels in which it is carried give way to something else entirely.
on Aug 1st, 2007 at 11:50 pm
The reporters will thrive, but what about editors?
One of the functions of editors today is selecting what to run on the “front page” and, generally, what is newsworthy. All the mechanisms of the net, e.g. “most emailed articles”, are rapidly eliminated the need for that skill. The judgments about what people want to read is immediate and needn’t be guessed at.
The other crucial functions of editors, like verifying stories, is still important.