Michael Crichton’s 1993 Prediction of Mass-Media Extinction Now Looks on Target
Sunday, June 1, 2008 |
Category: Newspapers, Television, Forecasting & Futurism |
More credit where credit is due: I was alerted to this provocative May 2008 column on Slate.com by Bob Sacks in his “'Heard on the Web’ Media Intelligence newsletter.
Back in the prehistoric era, i.e. 1993, mega-bestselling author Michael Crichton wrote an article for Wired magazine called Mediasaurus. In the article he made several predictions, expanding from the premise stated in his first paragraph, “To my mind, it is likely that what we now understand as the mass media will be gone within ten years. Vanished, without a trace.”
Jack Shafer, Slate’s “editor at large,” revisits those predictions with Crichton, as well as referencing his earlier visit with Crichton in the same subject in 2002. When challenged that as of 2002 his predictions appeared still far from accurate, Crichton responded: “I assume that nobody can predict the future well. But in this particular case, I doubt I’m wrong; it’s just too early.”
Crichton complains bitterly (as many other commentators have noted) that the decline of newspapers and television are not simply because of the Web alternative, but also the ever-decreasing quality of those media.
Shafer notes Crichton’s belief that “it will take a media visionary…somebody like Ted Turner --to create the high-quality information service he foresaw in his 1993 essay. In addition to building the service, the visionary will also have to convince news consumers that they need it.”
The 30+ comments that follow the article are the usual vituperative mumbo-jumbo; the article itself, a good read.
