Not Everyone Laments a World Without Print

I'm glad I'm not the only one that sees the demise of newspapers as something completely predictable and ultimately unstoppable. 

The fact that the venerable print publication, Newsweek, published an article this week about this topic surprised me, and I agree with most of it:

Don't Bail Out Newspapers--Let Them Die and Get Out of the Way

Indeed, in about 1996, when I was working closely with AOL, The New York Times began posting selected content on AOL. Getting The Times online was a benefit of being an AOL member.

I asked many people at the time what their long-term strategy for The Times would be, since it seemed clear to me that eventually all of its content would be online.

I think right answer would have been, "We'll eventually have to move to an all-digital environment, and we're going to be innovating like crazy to make sure we thrive in the digital age." But of course, that wasn't the answer I got.

I spend a lot my time thinking about the future, and how technology changes will impact what we're doing. Is your organization doing the same?

Comments

[Guin]

Good article, Mr. Carr. At our museum, we're offering more exhibit catalogs as PDF/downloadables only. Plus we're advertising in online-only publications - saves money and energy as well as reaching a "green-minded" audience.