The Future of Journalism (And How to Start It)
On November 5, people across the country lined up at newsstands, convenience stores, and coffee shops to snag a copy of the morning paper, a keepsake from the 2008 election. But they didn’t need the paper to tell them who had won the presidency; the news of Barack Obama’s historic win had already been gathered, broadcast, beamed, and packet-switched around the globe countless times. In fact, almost every word in almost every paper had already been available for free online for hours. “You can’t put a computer screen into a scrapbook,” one woman told the Washington Post as she waited in line. Microsoft Chief Counsel for Intellectual Property Strategy Thomas C. Rubin sees a problem in that situation for the future of the newspaper industry, and rightly so. Physical sales of newspapers have been declining significantly as the combination of 24-hour news channels and the Internet has replaced the once-daily print edition of the local paper. As Rubin recently told the UK Association of Online Publishers, “It would be one thing if print editions were being replaced with vibrant and profitable online versions. But as we all know, that is just not happening. Today we are still searching for healthy symbiosis between newspapers and new technology.”
In Earmarks Lies Salvation?
In a deepening recession, what does the reasonable man do? Seeing friends laid off, he will get rid of all but essential credit cards, dine at home more often, terminate unnecessary trips to the mall, put off buying a new car, give up the idea of borrowing on the vanishing equity in his house. He will begin to save and start paying down debt. A company that has reached the limits of its credit and is staring at Chapter 11 will batten down the hatches, lay off nonessential workers, cut employee hours, put off expansion plans, cancel year-end bonuses and try to ride out the storm.
