The End of Print?

John Nichols, doing a fairly good job reprising the "World Without Newspapers?" article you see every so often, writes:

European and Asian media owners have been a good deal more creative and aggressive in their response to the changing circumstances of newspapers. And in many cases, though certainly not all, they have been more successful than their American counterparts in maintaining the popular appeal of print publications. European publishers have, for instance, been far more willing to invest in radical redesigns of papers and new printing and distribution systems. And they have long recognized something that is close to unimaginable to those who guide American newspapering: that taking strong front-page stands on issues such as the genetic modification of food and global warming--becoming what the British refer to as a "campaigning newspaper"--does not inspire charges of bias but instead draws readers to groundbreaking journalism.

While the Chicago Tribune surely gets high marks for its attention to the death penalty issue, newspapers like Britain's Independent embark on dozens of campaigns in the course of a year--even going so far as to give their front pages over to promotions of rallies and protest marches against everything from poverty in Africa to the war in Iraq. But it's not just that European publishers are more engaged and adventurous. European citizens and their governments have a tradition of taking seriously the role newspaper journalism plays in building a civil and democratic society.

I tend to be rather sanguine about the future of print, though not in its current form. Newspapers currently expend a fair number of resources doing certain things very poorly, or replicating the efforts of other organizations. That was fine when the information junkie had few alternatives. It's less so when the world offers limitless avenues for data accumulation.

But all this really means is that newspapers will begin following magazines and specialty newspapers (like The Wall Street Journal) and seeking to make themselves indispensable to certain audiences. Some of those audiences may be ideological, and you'll see campaigning newspapers akin to the British Guardian or Fox News. Some will be professional, and you'll see dedicated foreign bureaus that do nothing save in-depth reporting on global issues, in much the way National Journal does for Congress. All will be, in their way, more relevant. The bloodless, fearful paradigm of "objective" reporting has alienated all while informing none, and it will likely come to a close.

As for the civic space supposedly provided by newsprint, that's always struck me as wildly overblown. The involvement and interactivity offered by blogs and Craigslist and their kin dwarf the paltry opportunities of Letters to the Editor page. Newspapers have long upheld that they're some sort of portal to community engagement, but does the metro section of the Washington Post really knit the community more tightly than Craigslist's Rants and Raves, or Tyler's ethnic dining guide, or DCist, or...?