I quit the print media after 20 years in the business in 1995. The coming death of the print media was obvious to me bcak then, and if it was obvious to me, then it had to be obvious to lots of other people, too.
In 1989 I was the editor of a small weekly in Oregon. I wrote an editorial about the use of computers in every home that would allow our little newspaper to be read online at home and compete with TV and radio 24/7 (although the phrases “online” and “24/7” were not the words I used, since they hadn’t been invented yet). My publisher pulled me into the office and told me that I shouldn’t be writing science fiction, especially about technology which would put him out of business.
He was half right. It’s an ironclad law of economics that a competitive market establishes the lowest price for a product, and in this case, as long as there is someone willing to offer the product (information) for free, that’s what people will pay. That’s why TV and radio are free, and why the British have to be forced to buy licenses (the state forces the higher price on people).
The other half of the issue is that the print media long ago abandoned its connection to the reader. Look at some old Mike Royko - he’s talking to you as if you’re drinking a beer with him. Compare that to Maureen Dowd, who talks to you as if she’s at some sophisticate’s cocktail party - assuming you were invited.
I could tell you all sorts of stories of fellow reporters and editors who ignored and insulted their readers. The bias was unrelenting leftist. The tone was ideologically shrill. I got out when the getting out was good. I could see that iceberg heading to the ship, and I knew the structure wasn’t as a watertight as advertised.
The good news is that eventually we’ll be back where we were with Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin. A single person will be able to be their own reporter, editor, publisher, advertising manager, and promoter using the current array of software and technology. Franklin put together “The Pennsylvania Gazette” on his own. When the San Fran Chronicle dies, writers will emerge, and some will attain popularity, those websites will struggle to find advertisers and support, and there will again be a diversity of voices and opinion in the community.
The other good news is that the print media will return to where it was back in the day - a place where men and women who felt the need to write, and expound, and share their thoughts can do so freely and openly.
And we’ll still have newspapers, in the same way that we still have poetry. It’ll just be a niche readership.
So let a thousand Limbaughs bloom! LOL
Thanks for the inside baseball post.