Newspapers: Getting Kicked into Change

With the recent announcements of even more newspapers folding or facing major cutbacks, lots of change is in the air for media corporations. Folio’s recent 2009 media predictions create a sense of urgency for media to evolve into a more user-friendly version of itself.

Keith Kelly, a columnist for New York Post suggests:

More closings of magazines and newspapers and more survivors clinging to the online world as a life boat. Fundamental problem of the digital age vs. print. While the gross numbers grows, advertisers still don’t invest in all the niche products with anywhere near the level of support that they once had for old mainstream media.

While Andy Cohn of VP Media foresees:

Five out of every 10 magazines and newspapers will go out of business, scale down their frequency or move entirely to the Web.  This will not just be survival of the fittest, rather survival of the most willing and able to adapt to the changing media paradigm, and throw all of the old rules out the window.

David Callaway sees the threat of the institution leaders will force innovations to save newspapers:

Unlike autos and finance, the problem with newspapers isn’t the content, but the delivery. The business side was too slow to adapt…So, by all means, mourn the passing of great names, just as we do in other industries. But look for the new channels from which all the talent that made them great will flow.

 

Technology’s Earmarks

A recent NY Times piece tackles the idea that something gets lost with our society’s change from phone to email communications.

THE self-knowledge gleaned from a few years’ worth of phone calls is unquantifiable. So it’s unlikely that consultants and organizational learning strategists will pay it much attention. But recently I walked the halls of my old office, and they were cemetery-silent at 3 p.m. on a Tuesday. No yelling, no giggling, no breathless appeals, not even a perfunctory “Hello, may I speak to. …”

When the stock market crashed my great uncle Pat was working as switchboard operator at a large hotel in New York City. It amazes me just thinking about what all went into a phonecall. You had to really want to talk to someone, have the patience to likely get disconnected somewhere in your attempts and then have a middleman in the entire process. Now, most of our communications consist of emails that look disjointed and incomplete.

For work I see the benefit of emails, they are an instant paper trail. And I have definitely been guilty of google-ing a person to get their email instead of using the phone number they left. Sometimes I cannot be bothered, and it really seems to me the quickest way to get any point across. The idea of phone tagging one another for a couple days seems silly.

Even with friends, phone conversations are a luxury these days. Different time zones and busy schedules do not make for calling ease. Sometimes I will go months with only email, or even g-chat updates from friends. I do love sending letters, but it’s hard to find time for that lately as well. Skype has become a new best friend of mine, and has allowed me to keep up-to-date on my Lis in London. To see her, and her bright happy shiny apartment is almost to be there and give her a hug. But what is odd is that I know more about what is going on with my friend over the pond than with my friends right here in my own city. Hmm.