With the newspaper industry in a desperate search for a business model that pays, many critics have begun to brainstorm what the new face of media will be. As early as March of 1993, Michael Crichton wrote a piece for a fledgling magazine called Wired.
The article, “Mediasaurus,” predicted the Web would bring a diverse flood of one-topic news websites, artificial intelligence systems that could find stories users are interested in, and a host of other ideas. He also suggested that newspapers, in the far off year of 2008, would be gone for good.
After the Globe’s month-long standoff with the New York Times Co., the debate over the future of the media has reached a frenzied pitch. As Crichton’s essay prophesied, the Internet is brimming with possibilities, but few certainties.
One of the main reasons for the newspaper industries’ decline has been the drop-off in both advertising and classifieds revenue. Due to the rise of the Internet, advertisers have found different venues and classifieds have become free.
While giving a tour of the Boston Globe offices, long-time photographer George Rizer pointed to a group of desks covered in old papers and unused equipment. “See those?” he said, “Those desks used to have tons of people taking classifieds, at all times of the day. Now, they’re gone.” Rizer went on to predict that in the next five years, one third of all newspapers will fold.
Veterans of the newspaper industry have their own ideas for how to keep the presses running. Jim Foudy, editor of the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, thinks requiring payments for online content will keep the Gazette in print.
“The newspapers shot themselves in the foot by providing free content, and Craigslist has done a number on our wanted ads and classifieds,” he said. To stay afloat, the Gazette requires a subscription to view much of its web content.
The Gazette model is a rarity in the online newspaper circuit because it requires money from users. Foudy admits that needing a subscription probably keeps readership from reaching its full potential This roadblock has led other editors take a different approach.
Boston.com, the site on which the Boston Globe posts all of its material, is free for anyone who chooses to use it. Bennie DiNardo, one of the deputy of managers of multimedia content at the Globe, has a different philosophy. “Our business is to deliver the news, no matter what the format,” he said. “To quote Arthur Sulzberger, head of the New York Times, we need to be agnostic about how people get their news.”
While newspapers continue to experiment with possible business models that will allow them to put content on the web while making a profit, other groups in the media are trying different methods.
One development occurring in the media sphere is the rise of citizen journalists. Often unpaid, these men and women report on issues that affect their communities. Opinions on the future of citizen journalists are mixed. Critics of mainstream media feel that citizen journalists offer news without agendas, a fault that the mass media is often accused of having. Others, like Rizer, say that amateur journalists practice an exercise in egomania that will lead to news without substance.
Some branches of the media are working overtime to fill in the gaps left by the newspapers‘ decline. Cambridge Community Television, a public-access television station operating in the Boston area, trains citizen journalists for a project called NeighborMedia, with the eventual goal of putting a journalist in every zip code in Cambridge.
Colin Rhinesmith, director of the project said, “to have residents see people they know reporting is inspiring. Seeing them produce stories that effect them is truly media by the people, for the people.”
CCTV may be a good place to start when looking for the new face of the media. It presents itself as an outlet of information newsworthy to those in the local community, users of nonprofessional talent, and is endlessly inventive. A project called MediaMap, built using Google Maps, shows how the new media is shaping up. Users can zoom into a map of Boston, choose a location, and watch, listen, or read a news story that happened the spot. Rhinesmith says that this is an especially exciting development for those with mobile devices.
Some parts of the media are looking forward to having a bigger role in making the news, while other parts are scrambling to hold the traditional aspects above the water. One suspects that when the dust finally clears, the winner will be something both very similar to — and very different from — the models already predicted.
“The newspaper business is in flux, but the principles of journalism are here to stay,” said Foudy.
