The Future of Journalism

The era of the printing press is ending.  The era of Wordpress is beginning.  We are all publishers now.  How can journalism survive?

Clay Shirky concludes that newspapers will die, but journalism will survive through experimentation with various business models.  He's basically correct.  I think the fundamental problem is that the return to scale is disappearing.  When you no longer need a large, granite building on Main Street, a printing press and a massive support structure to do journalism, the organizations who insist on keeping them will have to evolve or die.

So, what comes next?  Clay Shirky and Yochai Benkler both suggest various business models that may emerge (some already are).  I think we'll see the re-emergence of the ideological and partisan press - they're generally better at story-telling, because they have a story to tell - with fewer neutral/objective press organizations which can provide independent mediation for the competing claims of the partisan media organizations.  Utlimately, I think that's positive.  After all, organizations with an ax to grind are the most likely to have the fury needed to turn the wheel

Here are a few approaches I think we'll see...

• Niche Journalism: If the return to scale stops increasing at a much smaller level, then we should see those returns going to expertise, instead.  The specialization may be topical, geographic or ideological/partisan, but 1000 specialists working independently should be able to provide more value than 10 organizations each employing 100 generalists. 
• Indeed, we're already seeing this.  Talking Points Memo is doing ideological niche journalism. Ars Technica, Wired and GigaOM do technology niche journalism.  The Leaderboards at Memeorandum, Techmeme and WeSmirch are full of more good examples.
• Dynamic Journalism: Why are news stories a static product?  We're already seeing Real Time Journalism (as-it-happens reporting that creates a story arc, rather than after-the-fact reporting) from outlets like The Politico and Talking Points Memo.  That will almost certainly expand.   But the blogosphere exists, in part, because people are unsatisfied with the news, so there is room for more dynamic reporting - that is, an organization which covers a story in an almost Wikipedia-like model - updating and correcting a story as it emerges - with a team of editors and reporters collaborating (with input/feedback from the public) to create what amounts to a single "same facts" overview of a broad story.
• Non-profit Journalism: Non-profits may not earn a monetary profit, but monetary profit isn't the only ROI.  Ideological magazines (e.g., National Review, The Nation, Weekly Standard, Reason, Washington Monthly, The American Spectator, The American Prospect, Human Events, Mother Jones, The New Republic) may not earn a profit very often (or at all), but much of their value comes from the exposure and publicity they provide for ideas and information.  That has a great deal of value to many people and organizations, even if that value cannot be monetized.  I expect to see a great deal more funding of journalism by the people and organizations who want that kind of ROI. 

One final note that should concern those of us on the Right: while the Right has used the internet to expand the media criticism it had been doing for many years, the Left has been busy using the internet to build their own media infrastructure.  At this stage in the Wordpress era, the entrepreneurs have come from the Left.  The Right needs new infrastructure and new guards.  That is going to require an investment in these new business models.