Print media: the pre-autopsy
Revolutions create a curious inversion of perception. In ordinary times, people who do no more than describe the world around them are seen as pragmatists, while those who imagine fabulous alternative futures are viewed as radicals. The last couple of decades haven’t been ordinary, however. Inside the papers, the pragmatists were the ones simply pointing out that the real world was looking increasingly like the unthinkable scenario. These people were treated as if they were barking mad. Meanwhile the people spinning visions of popular walled gardens and enthusiastic micropayment adoption, visions unsupported by reality, were regarded not as charlatans but saviors.
Cause of Death Determined for Print Media by Clay Shirky in Gawker.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
March 17th, 2009 at 00:02
CNN has “iReport” these days. Fox News has “U-Report”. Ordinary people will be the ones sending in news straight from their neighborhoods.
March 17th, 2009 at 21:23
What does this post-mortem of the print tell us? That we are a “bored” creation.
We want “real time” news; we can’t wait for tomorrow for today’s news. We want it real bad right now.
The news via the Internet is alive, happening as the hour ticks away.
The boy who gunned down his schoolmates in Germany last week chatted about his plan hours before he carried it out; if only more of us were reading about it (in real time), the carnage could have been prevented.