I read the CJR screed by David Simon, journalist turned TV entertainment writer, demanding that newspapers act quickly to build a wall around themselves to keep the Internet out. Here's what I got out of it:
Only the New York Times and the Washington Post matter.
No real journalism gets done outside print newspapers.
The regional papers all stink and deserve to die.
The AP must kick out the broadcasters and dump the commercial customers, or die.
If we engineer a mass suicide by the entire newspaper industry, kill the Associated Press, strangle the broadcasters and continue to pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist, we'll ensure the perpetuation of the 1980s Washington Post-New York Times news empire so they can hire 10 reporters in St. Louis.
Did I get the gist of it?
Comments
Absolutely
He calls it a bold
One more thing ...
Also
Yes
Simon is deluded if he thinks
Curmudgeon market demand
Jeff's onto something, but the market is probably quite a bit larger. There are still tens of thousands of working journalists who want to be told their work has direct cash market value. It doesn't, of course, but that hunger creates a demand for flights of fancy suggesting otherwise.
I'm not suggesting that content isn't important or valuable, just that the notion of direct cash sale of general news content to the public is a naive and unworkable model.
Simon kicks ass
You know what's really funny?