September 26th, 2008
I’ve just updated my article on the future of newspapers. It was painful. The news about the newspaper industry in North America has been so unremittingly depressing for so many years that it’s extremely difficult to re-enter the topic with anything but a grimace.
Still, I managed to create a new section that I call “Bright Moments” (named after an old Rahsaan Roland Kirk song of that name). I chose three topics to focus on: “Free Dailies,” “Community Newspapers” and “The Global Newspaper Industry.”
The free dailies are apparently beginning to suffer some of the setbacks of the broader newspaper industry, but the other two topics appear as true bright moments.
I was of course cheered to find something bright to mix into the gloom, but I cannot say that I’m in any way convinced that these bright moments are going to be self-sustaining, or to change the overall gloom that enshrouds this once-great medium.
The problems are so complex. What do you think will be the outcome?