The Future of Media

On some level, I'm sure this is a joke, but still:

Ben Bradlee appealed to the audience to maintain faith in newspapers. He's not high on computers and blogs -- mostly because it's too uncomfortable to drag the computer to the john. He said "the newspaper and magazine work best in the bathroom."

I suppose I agree with that. On the other hand, I imagine that sometime in the future a device will be invented that is convenient to bring into the bathroom and that also gets the internet. Similarly, someone yesterday cited to me "you can bring it on the train" as a reason for preferring print to web. This, to my view, is an extremely compelling consideration. It's still the case that there are places where you can't get wireless broadband. On the other hand, every six months there are fewer and fewer such places. The literal newspaper -- the newsprint with the ink on it -- is clearly doomed. The question is whether specific newspaper-producing institutions like The Washington Post can provide their readers with enough additional value to maintain audiences without the benefit of the country being organized into a series of segmented local monopolies.

Comments

I imagine that sometime in the future a device will be invented that is convenient to bring into the bathroom and that also gets the internet

And I imagine this device will look a lot like a laptop connected to a wifi network.

Posted by mondo dentro | April 1, 2007 10:31 PM

Media is changing everything.

http://www.conservativeexodusproject.com/

Something like the Conservative Exodus Project never would have existed 20 years ago.

Posted by Real Conservative | April 1, 2007 10:40 PM

I suppose I agree with that. On the other hand, I imagine that sometime in the future a device will be invented that is convenient to bring into the bathroom and that also gets the internet.

Yes, but unlike the newsprint version of the Washington Post, you won't be able to wipe your ass with it when you're done.

Posted by Dan Kervick | April 1, 2007 10:46 PM

Man, earlier today I was reading blogs off my nice small laptop, while sitting in the john. There, I said it.

And small format PCs are on the way in. The iPhone isn't the first easily web enabled phone. Dude, it's happening now. 'Nuff said.

Posted by mc | April 1, 2007 10:47 PM

Wireless + laptop + internet access = you can read newspapers in the john. Not exactly sanitary, but its possible. It isn't any less sanitary that people who keep a stack of magazines around in the john for people to read.

Posted by Ben | April 1, 2007 10:49 PM

Geez, how old is AvantGo by now? Reading news on the train is, well, old news.

Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra | April 1, 2007 10:57 PM

The key development will be the flexible flat-screen. When a high-resolution, flexible screen becomes available, something the size of a trade paperback or magazine that you can stuff in your coat pocket or backpack without worrying about breaking or scratching it, then print will disappear very fast.

Posted by bloix | April 1, 2007 10:59 PM

I began reading blogs seriously in 2002. Depending upon a mix of blogs and marginalized academics & experts, I have consistently had a different viewpoint of the world than the one I saw depicted in the Newspapers & on television. Events of the last 5 years have confirmed that the blog provided information is more accurate. Why should I continue to read newspapers? I barely read the Post or the NY Times anymore, and I feel better informed than I was.

Posted by MDtoMN | April 1, 2007 11:00 PM

They are in financial free fall with circulation numbers crashing. They have no viable economic model to make an effective shift to the internet. They have very significant brand and distibution, but their product is shit and ossified (Broder, et.al). They still have some strength on the journalistic side, but that is becoming a rarity. Networks of sharp, nimble, low cost on-line outfits will be the final nail in the MSM coffin.

Posted by ericT | April 1, 2007 11:01 PM

We need one of those betting markets to offer spreads on the date that the NYT ceases print publication. I'd be interested to see what the market would estimate.

Posted by otto | April 1, 2007 11:11 PM

Yes, but unlike the newsprint version of the Washington Post, you won't be able to wipe your ass with it when you're done.

Dan, if you would embrace globalism/free-trade, we would soon have computers so cheap that you could, in fact, wipe your ass with them when you were done.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | April 1, 2007 11:22 PM

The problem with the theory that newspapers and magazines will never become outdated because they are more portable than a laptop with an Internet connection, is that you can choose to do things other than read news when on the pot. Speaking personally, I play Mario Kart DS in the bathroom, and read news at my computer.

In any case, the rise of other news venues and other diversions isn't the real reason for the decline of newspapers and magazines, at least not per se. The main problem going forward will be advertising. Newspapers and general-interest magazines depend upon businesses who are willing to pay big bucks for advertising, just to gain the attention of the relatively few who are interested in their product. Businesses will become less and less interested in spending those big bucks when they can use a variety of computer-related technologies to focus their efforts on those few consumers.

Posted by ploeg | April 1, 2007 11:50 PM

God damn it Ygelsias,
Such a device does exist. It's called a cell phone. However, the only really good browser for cell phones renders your site unreadable. I've bitched about this before. Can you please change the color of the dark gray background on your site? On a regular browser this background gets completely covered up, but on simple browsers which don't handle css, you end up trying to read black on dark gray. It has ruined many a good deuce for me.
Thanks for listening

Posted by michesmith | April 2, 2007 12:12 AM

Dude, get yourself a Treo (I'm posting this on one. )

The key development will be the flexible flat-screen. When a high-resolution, flexible screen becomes available, something the size of a trade paperback or magazine that you can stuff in your coat pocket or backpack without worrying about breaking or scratching it, then print will disappear very fast.

Also comes in handy if there's no TP in reach.

Posted by Barry Freed | April 2, 2007 12:30 AM

Palm Treo + RSS reader = great bathroom reading (would be even better if Matt had full-length RSS feeds! :)

Very few of us are lucky enough to be able to commute by train.

Posted by Frank Bruno | April 2, 2007 12:33 AM

Frank, can you recommend a good RSS reader for te Treo (650, Palm OS 5)?

Posted by Barry Freed | April 2, 2007 3:46 AM

"On the other hand, I imagine that sometime in the future a device will be invented that is convenient to bring into the bathroom and that also gets the internet."

When oh when will someone invent this "mobile phone"?

Posted by Ginger Yellow | April 2, 2007 6:16 AM

No no no! The newspaper is not at all "clearly doomed." Newspapers have been around for hundreds of years and have weathered technological upstarts at least as threatening as the internet. The idea that the latest technology dooms all previous ones and we're in a new paradigm where the old rules simply don't apply is ludicrous. Matt, you seem to grasp this concept perfectly well when it comes to foreign policy; why not newspapers?

Some, perhaps many, newspapers will undoubtedly falter, downsize, go belly up, whatever. But the newspaper as we know it will be around throughout our lifetimes.

Posted by Marshall | April 2, 2007 8:50 AM

"Some, perhaps many, newspapers will undoubtedly falter, downsize, go belly up, whatever. But the newspaper as we know it will be around throughout our lifetimes."

This depends completely on whether the advertising model that newspapers depend on holds up. And whether the cost of paper stays sufficiently cheap enough to make continuing newspapers worthwhile.

As it stands, the nearly-free content paid for by advertising model that newspapers depend on is drying up due to the internets. It isn't the loss of content that is hurting the newspapers, its the loss of those classified ads that once brought in the bulk of their income. They've been losing money for years to sites like Monster, Craig's List and even eBay (why hold a garage sale and pay to advertise it when you can just sell your junk online). That's why we're seeing so much consolidation in the newspaper buisiness (why do you think Tribune Media owns so many papers nationwide now), and its going to keep happening until it becomes economically infeasible to put this stuff out on paper, at which point they'll switch to web-only publishing.

Having said that, magazines will be around a lot longer than newspapers. Magazines are far more portable than any electronic device, require no power to operate, and no one cares if they accidentally leave a $5 magazine on an airplane. Magazines don't have the same kind of advertising model as newspapers (more of their money comes from subscribers than from advertisers, usually), and so magazines can tailor themselves to niche markets better than newspapers.

Posted by NonyNony | April 2, 2007 9:16 AM

I like doomed old things, that's why I buy the paper every day. None of those national footprint ones though. Now that Lord Black's mitts are off the Sun-Times I'm ok buying it.

Posted by dbt | April 2, 2007 9:19 AM

I hate paper cluttering my apartment. I subscribe to the paper NYRB in case there's something by pain in the ass extremist Nicholson Baker. Otherwise, there's enough news and magazines online.

Posted by Gary Sugar | April 2, 2007 9:33 AM

Hey Nony Nony (;))--

I more or less agree completely with your post. The main question which occurs to me (and applies to the music industry as well), however, is: "how exactly are news-gathering organizations going to perform their function if nobody wants to pay for it?"

There are a lot of bloggers willing to act as entry-level op-ed columnists (or read one of the recent GOP "document dumps") for free. The number of people with the willingness *and expertise* (and, presumably, a network of industry sources to tip them off) to pore over the convoluted annual statements of Enron in detail for weeks to uncover possible financial wrongdoing is going be a *lot* smaller if there's no Wall Street Journal to pay them for doing so.

It's au courant to deride the notion of big-media "gatekeepers," but it's also unsettling to imagine a media landscape where the noise level is just too high for any information to get through.

Posted by James Gary | April 2, 2007 11:07 AM

LOL--I was in my wi-fi enabled apartment and had just picked up my laptop and was walking to the bathroom (yes, reading my open laptop as I walked), and I read this entry as I walked in the door to my bathroom.

So, uh, yeah, some people already do this. LOL.

Posted by anonymous | April 2, 2007 12:12 PM

Barry: Google Reader actually has a mobile version that's pretty good. Most of the actual RSS apps don't update over-the-air, they work on a sync method, which isn't as good, IMO.

Posted by Frank Bruno | April 2, 2007 12:39 PM

The Achilles heel of the newspaper industry appears to be, quite obviously, the physical transport and delivery of hundreds of tons of newsprint to largely suburban areas on a daily basis. Thus, it appears quite likely that a rapid increase in the price of fuel could put quite a dent in the dead-tree news business.

This would hardly be noticed by the young. They use computers to access myspace accounts and email almost as often as they use the phone, and I base this on watching aides and nurses on their coffeebreaks and lunchhours at hospitals and nursing homes.

Quite possibly, like the 'one-hoss shay', the industry and the readers will die together, ending their current senile status.

In Puget Sound the Seattle P-I took an early lead in hosting blogs and appending comment threads to articles. The Seattle Times has responded quite sluggishly, but in a totally unexpected development one of the younger Blethens is a very forward-looking and honest fellow, so I would give strong odds that Puget Sound will end up with two major web-distributed papers.

As for the idea that the NYT is portable- considering it has little other value, wouldn't a stylish homburg be a better investment?

Posted by serial catowner | April 2, 2007 12:42 PM

In a way, the move from print to internet compells _more_ local covergae on news web sites, not less --- if I want enterntainment news, if I want political news, if I want business news, I might go to E! online or the Washington Post or the Economist blog. But if I want Boston news I'm going to Boston.com. What the local monopoly of print does is force my locan paper to have bureaus elsewhere, not prevent other papers from having newstands in my hometown.

Posted by C. | April 3, 2007 12:16 AM