Thursday, January 29, 2009

Newspapers on the computer

This kind of makes me want to cry.




These guys say newspapers should establish endowments to survive. Great idea. Only the best will be worthy, though, which will lead to a brutal culling. But that's going to happen anyway. And newspapers with significant endowments will keep reporting the news, which is what is really important. Save the newspapers!

4 comments:

Mr. Pony said...

I'm not sure about that whole culling thing. I mean, sure, many papers would die, but I bet for every kajillionaire who wants to save the New York Times or the Washington Post, there's a kabillionaire and a couple of kamillionaires who would be willing to help save their local papers. After all, the websites of local papers fucking suck!

Also, not to make light of the promise of a bright future closing in on a sad and twisted destiny, but my favorite moment is the on-screen description of the guy at 1:35.

odori said...

Yes! I loved that caption!!!

I also think it's hilarious the way the reporter-type guy is peering at the computer like it's a mysterious animal at 1:53.

I wouldn't be surprised if the culling took down at least half the country's newspapers. There aren't many U.S. cities left with two daily papers, but after the culling I would bet there will be only two: New York and Washington. It's hard for me to imagine there being enough rich guys around to keep two papers afloat in each city... I hope I'm wrong! And don't forget the smaller ones like The Maui News and The Garden Island on Kauai. Those islands would both be much worse off without daily papers I think. I hope they find saviors too!

Mr. Pony said...

Strange to think of a community not developing some form of local news distribution system, in the absence of one. I wonder if a given community wouldn't just re-grow such a system, if its newspapers all died.

odori said...

Apparently nonprofit news sites have popped up in San Diego, Seattle, Chicago and other cities, and are having some success.
This article
talks about the San Diego one in particluar. Sounds promising.