“People don’t actually read newspapers. They step into them every morning like a hot bath.”
– Marshall McLuhan
The Detroit Media Partnership, which manages the operations of Detroit’s two daily newspapers, has announced that beginning in March of next year the papers will limit delivery to just three days a week. Other daily newspapers in major cities are sure to follow this lead, as the economy continues to batter the newspaper industry.
Are we witnessing a media revolution? In the same way that icons and oral stories gave way to Gutenberg’s printing press, is the printing press now the victim of the new media? Obviously the PC revolutionized the way we communicate. But when the first bulky PCs made their way to our desktops 30 years ago, did we ever anticipate using them for minute by minute communication the way we do today via Twitter and Facebook?
With the death of the daily newspaper, the death of the printed book cannot be far behind. The majority of Americans (Earthlings?) now receive information and news electronically. The information we exchange on Facebook and Twitter has arguably more influence on us than anything on a printed page we have read today. Have you even read anything on a printed page today?
And what kind of world are we entering where information is consumed in blog or Twitter-size bites rather than through a leisurely perusal and serious consideration of the issues? Could Watergate have ended a presidency if Woodward and Bernstein were Twittering the story rather than submitting thousands of words in a daily pursuit of the truth (as perceived by the WAPO)?
What effect is Twitter having on our capacity to process facts and sort truth from error? Could this explain why Barack Obama seems to so easily deflect any real probing of his numerous relationships with persons of ill-repute? Reporters are looking for the story in 140 characters or less, when getting to the truth requires a whole lot more than that. Yet readers no longer have the capacity for any more than a Twitter-size bite of information, then it’s on to the next thing.
The death of the daily newspaper may portend the death of the book. And the death of the book may portend the fulfillment of everything ever written by Orwell, Postman and McLuhan.
The future of the book is the blurb. – Marshall McLuhan
Excellent response, Chris. I especially appreciated your point about the Free Press’s role in the exposure of Kwame Kilpatrick. It took a PRINT publication to do that.
I think we write-off the importance of print publications at our peril. I’m certainly immersed in all the available technology. No Luddite am I. But it seems there must be room for both print and electronic publications that complement rather than compete.
When I first got into talk radio in 2002 the first thing I did was register a domain name and began putting up the audio of the shows as soon as possible. My boss was totally opposed to it, saying that the web presence was competing with the live version of the program. He didn’t get that a whole NEW audience was listening on the web.
It’s interesting that you post this today. I wrote a column about that for my paper, which will be published this weekend. The death of newspapers has been predicted since I was in college, but only now are we beginning to see it happen (although some magazines have switched to online-only publication).
This is going to be an interesting time for the media and it could go either way. I, for one, believe that papers have been suffering lately because of a failure to take advantage of all that the Internet allows. Rather than simply throw up copy on a web site, papers should ago been utilizing weblogs for interaction, video for breaking news and other Internet tools while satisfying the need for true, in-depth news in the daily printings. Instead, newspapers panicked and either ignored the Internet altogether or simply created an on-line version that replicated what readers held in their hand each day. Now, the machines have won.
Hopefully the News and Free Press will not allow the technological switch to impact their reporting–if it weren’t for the Free Press, Kwame Kilpatrick would likely still be in office. And while I understand that the news business thrives on immediacy, I hope and pray that the Freep and News will allow their reporters time to create well-crafted and researched stories, instead of wanting to be the first to post (often incorrect) information.
But I’m afraid we’re seeing the dumbing down of the American culture behind this. News writers are already told in college to write at a 5th Grade level, because that’s the level most Americans read at. The Associated Press recently mandated a 500 word limit on entertainment reviews and “think pieces,” which is ironic–how much thinking can you provoke in 500 words? Newspapers are laying off film critics and reviewers in record numbers and replacing them with celbretainment reporters…it may seem insignificant until you realize that we have a culture that would rather learn about Tom Cruise’s dating life than about thought-provoking art and cultural changes.
And I fear that instead of true journalism we’ll see blogging and twitterdom begin to take over–soundbytes instead of context, sensationalism instead of probing, balanced journalism. We’ll see bias dominate, as Americans stop asking us to be so darn vague and start telling them what to think.
It’s the world of “Idiocracy” coming to life.
Great post, Paul.