The Future of the Newspaper is as a 2.0 Platform

Michael Kinsley, writing in Time magazine, asks the big (and loaded) question: "Do Newspapers Have a Future?" Kinsley notes that newspapers have embraced blogging as one solution, but overall his column raises more questions than it even attempts to answer.

Blogging has been wonderful for newspapers. It unshackles reporters from just delivering facts. They can now show who they are as people through the expression of opinions. However, blogging is the first in a series of dominoes that have to fall for the newspaper to thrive in a world where the reader rules - and tells everyone so.

For newspapers to survive, they need to turn themselves into an online and offline platform for local readers. I don't mean a platform for contributing to the reporting process. They're doing that already (and nicely). What I am saying is that local newspapers need to use their brands and their big web sites to help local readers profit emotionally and monetarily by: selling goods peer-to-peer, expressing themselves, developing new kinds of technologies, connecting through online and offline local social networking and more. Think Google or Yahoo, not USA Today.

In short, they need to become destinations where almost all value is created by the "readers," not by the publisher or journalists. This means tearing pages right out of the Wikipedia/Second Life playbook. In both of these communities, the greatest value is created by the crowd, not the online destination itself. The community is merely the operating system that enables value creation. Newspapers need to do the same - both online and off.

Will that happen? Time will tell. But early signs are here today. The Washington Post Blogroll program is in that spirit. Now we need to see more of it - and fast.

Comments

[mroonie]

Seems as if the real challenge lies not within providing emotional satisfaction, or having content that holds value through its readers. The challenge lies in figuring out how to do this in print.

For a reader to be interactive online is easy but if newspaper companies do choose to adopt and focus even more on a 2.0 spin, the idea of a physical, made-out-of-recycled-paper-that get-your-hands-all-dirty newspapers will be non-existant. Print will be no match for a newspaper company's online presence.

I agree that company's should definitely work on making their websites more interactive. However, if this means the end to reading news OFF of a computer monitor, I for one am not for this. Too much of life already is spent in front of a computer.

Companies should look into adopting a 2.0 strategy online. But, on top of this, they should also look into creating a "Print 2.0" craze that will provide more "real" human interaction, rather than it all being virtual. The newspaper company to figure this one out will be the one that will top off all others.

[John Wagner]

Actually, Steve, I think the exact opposite is true -- newspapers need to get back to creating localized content that can't be found elsewhere, written by reporters/journalists with real expertise on the beats they cover.

The key word there is local. Too many city newspapers have gotten away from providing interesting, important, LOCAL content that can't be found elsewhere.

You want the opinions of the masses ... there are plenty of blogs you can turn to.

Journalists and journalism play a specific role in a free society that is important and vital. To equate that with Second Life is frankly, a little scary.

[real estate]

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[Rose]

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[Grace Liu]

Steve - I think about what it would take for me to subscribe to a newspaper, with ads and all, and I see a personalized newspaper with personalized ads as really appealing. Of course, in this case, the newspaper may have to be delivered straight to my mailbox, but I would appreciate having a personalized daily to tote around and read as I'm eating breakfast at the kitchen table, commuting on the train, etc. You could argue mobile devices can be used to serve up personalized dailies electronically and in real time, but given the limited screen size of mobile devices, a printed version is still the clear winner for articles, images, and ads that require a lot of space.

The future of newspaper is just one of the many topics you can touch on at an upcoming event on social media and marketing that I have sent you an invite to. I hope you will be able to review the invitation and I hope you can make it.

[Trevor Cook]

I think the problem with Kinsey's view is that it amounts to saying that in order to survive newspapers have to stop being newspapers and morph into something else. Which may be true, but then we won't have newspapers anymore (maybe that doesn't matter) and can they actually do it. Railroads didn't become airlines or auto manufactures they just stuck to their smaller share.
I think new companies will become the models Kinsey described and newspapers will consolidate and get smaller and more specialised.

[Frode Hegland]

I am all for the future of the web. My professional future is all about the web; creating a more interactive information space.

But newspapers are physical objects, they are not just passive carriers of information.

You cannot skim the web like you can a large page of newsprint.

You cannot read on a laptop as easily as you can a a newspaper. A study I was involved with about 2 years ago found that people move, or change their position while reading, noticeably more when reading form paper media than from a laptop. It was quite a casual study of people reading in Starbucks, carried out over a month, but revealing. Have a look at the way people read next time you enjoy a cup.

Of course, eBooks will bridge the gap to a degree, but it will still lack the expanse that a paper offers, the real estate.

It all comes down to the quality of reading. Today we can zoom through the web with - among other things, our Hyperwords Firefox extension - but nothing beats reading a long, in-depth opinion piece in the International Herald Tribune on paper with good lighting. It is so much more suited for deep reading.

An exciting potential is of course when we have eInk of a quality resembling newsprint with foldable, large paper - as seen in countless Sci-Fi movies. This is one area I think Hollywood has got it right :-)

[Ariel]

Hi there,

I'm the founder of BrooWaha Los Angeles, a new citizen journalism website.

I do believe that citizen journalism can bring major changes to the field. Writing pertinent news doesn't always require the skills and experience of a journalist. You pretty much have to be at the right place and the right time, and tell your story.
There is not enough journalists to cover every little thing that happens in our world and that could still interest a lot of readers. Citizen journalism can change this by providing a freely accessible platform to share information. Thousands and thousands of "journalists" in every city could then bring information to the public.
The problem will be to work on this information to filter out the junk and ensure quality. That's another story.

Cheers,
Ariel
www.broowaha.com

[Joe Wikert]

Hi Steve. I think you make some excellent points. Citizen journalism is definitely the future. You also mention the Washington Post Blogroll program. It seems like they announced that a loooooong time ago but I still don't see them doing much with it. Their homepage lists 6 external blogs, which change with every refresh. I don't need a random list of totally unrelated blogs! I'd like to see a real directory created by people with newspaper smarts. Speaking of which, I've had a few newspaper-related posts on my own blog that you might be interested in:
http://jwikert.typepad.com/the_average_joe/newspapers/index.html