“We talk about creative destruction, and celebrate the rise of blogging as citizen journalism and Craigslist as self-service advertising, but there are times when something that seemed great in theory arrives in reality, and you understand the downsides. I have faith both in the future and in free markets as a way to get there, but sometimes the road is hard. If your local newspaper were to go out of business, would you miss it? What kinds of jobs that current newspapers do would go undone?”
Good questions to ask. Although I have the utmost faith that local newspaper can survive — and even thrive and grow — I have just as much faith that many won’t. This is a make or break time for local newspaper. Either get on board with the new world, or die.
What happens if your local paper chooses the later route?
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/03/sf_chronicle_in.html
001 // Grant Blakeman // 03.24.2007 // 2:33 PM
I think there are a lot of opportunities for local media, but they don’t look like the old model, so they’re hard to see.
I’m tired of my local paper trying to cover national/international news as if it actually has something it can add to the discussion.
At the same time, I enjoy the local publications that are focusing on local music, entertainment, and even news/social issues that don’t warrant national or even state-wide discussion necessarily. These are niches that I think local news can fill successfully, but it might mean more specialized publications and distribution channels.