Newspapers' death or new life?
Twenty years ago, I don’t know why, a colleague and I got into a discussion about the future of newspapers. He said, roughly, “Newspapers are going to survive until you can take your computer into the bathroom with you to read it.”
At that time, we didn’t know anything about the Internet. We didn’t know anything about the World Wide Web. It was just talk.
Yesterday, what my pal talked about 20 years ago, came to fruition. Yes, we’ve been reading news on Blackberries for years. A new dimension was added with the iPhone. The Kindle and other e-readers upped the ante. And yesterday the iPad arrived.
But maybe this is just what newspapers needed. The Hearst Corp., parent of the San Antonio Express-News, said in December it was launching, Skiff, a service to provide content for e-readers.
This raises a question: Who is going to provide the content? Who is going to report the stories? Newspaper staffs have been cut to the bone. Even the wire services are laying off reporters. It would be a shame to see this opportunity present itself only there is no news outlet capable of capitalizing.
