Conference on State of Newspaper Industry Draws Huge Crowd

Titled, "Pressing Times: Can Newspapers Survive in the New World of Journalism?," the event drew a capacity crowd and left the impression that these executives had very little hope for the newspaper industry of the future.

"The inevitable conclusion is that newspapers are dying," offered Pruitt. Joel Brinkley, a journalism professor at Stanford, gave a summary that the four panelists had a hard time denying — the survival of the newspaper industry is threatened, and the Internet is the cause of it.

Other assertions floated by Brinkley were that only newspaper reporters can do ethical journalism and that radio, television and online reporting routinely "lift" newspaper content. Newspapers and journalism were often conflated by panelists as one and the same without separating the craft from the medium. But Pruitt said "it's the business model that is under stress," and that was what is harming journalism, not simply heavy competition from other media.

"We're gonna have to adapt and evolve, as Darwin pointed out," he said. The loss of classified advertising revenue to sites like Craigslist.com was the first clue that their business model was doomed.

More
http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=4530#more