A new world of print 2.0

David Johnson April 17th, 2008

The New York Observer’s John Kolbin writes on how the Web is having a negative impact on print journalism. Sure, sure… heard it all before right? But this one has some pretty interesting stuff in it.

Essentially, weaker stories with little or no new information are getting stronger play in print by editors who don’t know what else to do. In an environment where news is always breaking and the pressure to break is increasing, the breaks are getting harder to find. Now everyone is trying to move copy like the AP. Wired’s Chris Anderson is quoted on how the relationship is changing:

“The role used to be that the way information was propagated was by the media, and it was the only way to get it out there. Now the role of the media is to add value to that kind of conversation and ask how much weight to give it. It’s not so much breaking news as much as legitimizing news.”

I’m not sure that new role is going to be a sustainable model for the future given the state of the art. The 2008 State of the Media report clearly finds that the public is past dissatisfied and is lashing back against the pack mentality in mainstream media by seeking new online alternatives. Old media types can’t just blame the new technology, the old content style is part of the problem. And it seems the reaction to the new mediascape has been floundering and doubling down on old bets. Copying your competition may have worked when media markets were geographic monopolies, but everyone has to work harder to distinguish themselves now and add value to the global conversation.