December 02, 2005

What?

Well, it pretty much seems to be conventional wisdom: Newspapers are old, slow, tired, out of touch, boring and obsolete, and any day now we'll be getting our news from blogs and podcasts and cell phones and we can kiss those ink-smudged relics goodbye.

Or something like that.

There's just one problem with this scenario: Newspapers provide the overwhelming amount of news in this country. Washington news, investigative news, state news, local news, business news, sports news, science news, you name it. Everyone else, from Web sites to TV to magazines, poaches off newspapers. Which could create a problem if their advertising base is swallowed up by online portals and there's no revenue to pay the battalions of editors, reporters and photographers who churn out the stuff that the rest of the world feels free to borrow, steal, disparage and argue about.
[Last Throes - Washington Post - 12-02-05]

I apologize for legally borrowing an excerpt from Howard Kurtz's ink-smudged relic talk and arguing about it here, but I just read it through my FREE online Washington Post subscription. Dell, Hydroderm, Vonage and whoever else advertised on that page might appreciate it, though.

I hope Kurtz isn't expressing some fear that his writing wouldn't fetch what it's worth in digital media. The written word isn't diminished by new digital mediums and the decline of printed newspapers. I've never read as much as I have over the past 5 years, and that is thanks solely to the digital medium of the Internet. It's not my fault the Washington Post, like most industrial-age media distributors, didn't prepare for it.

For 50 cents a day, a regular Washington Post reader not only helps pay the salary of Howard Kurtz and his "battalions of editors, reporters and photographers," but also a monstrous money eating print operation, delivery trucks, and the work force necessary to distribute Kurtz's printed words every day. I'm sure the Washington Post can figure out how to get 50 cents online, put the printing press in a museum, and give poor Howard Kurtz a raise.