Black and White and Rose-Colored All Over
There’s a lot of high quality sturm und drang out there about the future of newspapers (mostly sturm, but the drang surely hasn’t been completely neglected). I have been somewhat skeptical, based mostly on the assumptions and the nature of those reports. This may be the other side of the story (via HuffPo):
Poll Finds Newspaper Editors Overwhelmingly Optimistic About The Future Of Print
Melissa Lafsky | Posted Wednesday March 28, 2007 at 03:06 PM…Zogby International polled 435 editors-in-chief, deputy editors and other senior news executives from around the world, finding that 85% of them are “very optimistic or somewhat optimistic” about the future of their papers. …
- Forty-percent of editors and news executives believe online will be the most common platform for news ten years into the future, while 35 percent believe in print’s supremacy. One in ten say mobile devices will be the most common platform, while 7 percent cite e-paper. And two out of 10 respondents say it will be technologies that are still in the emerging stage.
- Half the respondents believe that journalistic quality will improve over the next 10 years, versus one-quarter who think it will worsen.
- Eight in ten respondents view online and new media as a welcome addition.
Those with high volume web traffic — more than 200,000 unique visitors per day — are more likely to view new media positively, but the majority of editors at newspapers with modest traffic or no web sites also viewed new media positively. …
It’s in no way simple, of course, but I can’t help feeling like the blaring sirens are missing the point. Better to understand the problem as clearly as possible, so that it can be well managed, in the name of accuracy, credibility and the better impulses of democratic culture.
