Don't expect the Library Leadership Network to cover the whole complex of issues surrounding old media, new media and changes in media use--but some items do crop up that seem to belong here. This page is a home for items on media that don't (yet) appear to belong elsewhere. It's in the Services category because so much of library service involves media, whether physical or web-based--and while many media issues involve technology, it's secondary to some of them.

Are Newspapers Really Dying?

By Leslie Dillon from Leader's Digest May 2009

The publisher of MIT’s Technology Review, Jason Pontin, takes issue with the belief that media-as-a-­business is dying. The evangelists of the “Götterdämmerung-of-mainstream-media” know nothing about the business of media. They erroneously conflate mainstream media with physical production and distribution.

While it’s true that many newspapers and magazines are going broke, it’s not the costs of printing and distribution that are the causes. Good journalism is laborious and requires a highly expensive infrastructure. Story illustration and design require an infrastructure as well. Building an audience that attracts certain advertisers needs another infrastructure. Advertising sales needs still another. “These structures, which allow publications to reach large, coherent audiences, can exist only within complex organizations, mostly businesses.”

Some of these structures must be reinvented for the Internet. Others work well in this environment, especially editorial. And the number of newspaper and magazine readers is actually growing. Of course, that growth is all digital. For example, nytimes.com has between 14 million and 22 million readers every month; the weekday print edition of The New York Times is one million. Thirty-two million Americans read the news online every day. The real question isn’t how to attract readers; it’s how to pay for what those readers want.

While there aren’t yet good answers to that question, and some publications will die, publications run by smart, technology-savvy leaders will prosper. And although the details aren’t yet known, broad outlines for tomorrow’s publications are emerging. Consumers will have to pay for what they read, and better technologies will be needed for online display ads. 

Things change or die, including once-cherished organizations. Today’s newspapers and magazines will be transformed or replaced by other publications, which will have new modes of business. A great and terrible clearing is coming. Millions of amateurs will flourish to delight readers. But anyone who tells you that media-as-a-business is dying is wrong.

Jason Pontin, “A manifesto,” Technology Review, May/June 2009.

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