With places like Wikipedia, Digg, and Google changing the way we look at news generation, if it weren’t for the utility of paper newspapers as we know them would be on their way out. As it is, print revenues are dropping and web revenues can’t support the editorial staff that print could.
According to internal documents provided to Wired News and interviews with key executives, Gannett, the publisher of USA Today as well as 90 other American daily newspapers, will begin crowdsourcing many of its newsgathering functions. Starting Friday, Gannett newsrooms were rechristened “information centers,” and instead of being organized into separate metro, state or sports departments, staff will now work within one of seven desks with names like “data,” “digital” and “community conversation.”
The initiative emphasizes four goals: Prioritize local news over national news; publish more user-generated content; become 24-7 news operations, in which the newspapers do less and the websites do much more; and finally, use crowdsourcing methods to put readers to work as watchdogs, whistle-blowers and researchers in large, investigative features.
But who will generate new content if everyone is just linking to everybody else?
Sorry, a slight digression:
Not withstanding the wild success of sites like YouTube, do you find yourself preferring to read the text story when both text and video items are simultaneously offered on news web sites? I find I don’t have the patience to sit through a story that doesn’t allow me to quickly scan for relevant details.
RBG
2,
Text in some form will always exist as it is one of the most efficient ways to deliver information.
yes, for all the success of digg, etc, the business of full-time news- gathering ain’t going away.
oh, and I very rarely ever watch those videos on cnn.com both for the reasons cited by #1 and the fact that they are slooooooooow.
text will remain the primary way people get information and text on paper will remain huge until electronic delivery matches paper’s advantages.
People aren’t going to work for free, they only do what suits them, and if the news organization think they can harness such an unwealdy power, they should think again.
Who says the web can’t generate enough revenues? They lose the cost of printing.
Well said, the print news is going the dinosaur and the next generation of media company is presently going through growing pains. The revenues will follow…
when it is as easy to read my electronic news on the train, when I can drop my electronic newsreader and not worry about it breaking, when I can lose it and pick up another with the change in my pocket, when I don’t have to worry about losing a network connection or the battery running dry …
then I with find electronic news delivery to be a replacement for print on page.
until then, they both have their niches.
digg has proven that people get the news they deserve
6,
The cost of printing is a small fraction of the costs of publishing a magazine or newspaper.
GOOD
enough of this bullshit idiocy printing on a dead trees.
And a ‘real news’ in a tomorrow’s newspaper are already old, so whats the point.
What a terrible waste of trees.
However… I wish the paper mailbox spam would go away first.
Doesn’t anyone see it that the Postal Service in most of the western countries has turned into ‘paper spam delivery service’ for long time?
And should I remind everyone that we all pay for it?
Apart from occasional package i haven’t received (or sent) a ‘real’ letter in close to 10 years, and i bet most of you are the same.
It was easy to get rid of spam in my inbox(es), but somehow its impossible to stop public service like USPS from delivering paper spam, no matter how you try… 🙁
DIE PAPER NEWS DIE