In thinking of the future of journalism, there are two things that are clear to me: Advertising-supported journalism has mostly failed (and that's the subject of a future post), and the continued life of investigative journalism should be considered a societal benefit.
That said, what's not clear is whether journalism will be a viable profession in the future.
In a recent interview in the Columbia Journalism Review, Jonathan Glick, who helped the New York Times create its online version, argues that jobs in journalism will cease to exist. Instead, we could have Hollywood-like collaborations of journalists and publications to create an investigative ensemble.
One of the most interesting observations made by Glick is that journalism is an artifact of the printing press.
I guess the main thing to realize about the history of newspapers is that The New York Times didn’t become important because it had great content. That may be the way The New York Times remembers it, but it’s not true. The reason The New York Times became important is because they controlled the printing presses and the unions; it was the means of distribution that mattered. Given that success, they obviously moved on to what they thought was important-investigative journalism.
It was the monopoly that created the journalism, not the journalism that created the monopoly.
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