A Jan. 31 post “The Future of Placeblogging” responds to concerns about Seattle.WA losing one of its two newspapers:
“One of the first questions in the article is ‘how will we save newspapers?’ And the answer given, which is the correct one, is don’t worry about saving newspapers, worry about saving news. Saving journalism. This is a topic that has kept coming up in the last few years, where we look at the word newspaper, and split it into its component parts. News and Paper. Which of those is more important? News, of course, and paper is just the way to deliver it. Well, now people are deciding that they don’t want paper anymore, they just want news. And the newspaper companies are freaking out, because they think they’re in the business of selling paper. We need to keep drilling into their heads that it’s the news we’re interested in, and we’d rather get it on the screen than on a piece of paper. They also need to realize that they’re facing real competition from online-only sources now, and just because they’ve been around for a hundred years doesn’t mean they get to keep coasting on their past success forever.”
WATCHDOG: Nothing to add!
