Goodbye print, hello news

Print is dead.

But that line is missing its punch these days. No one can really be surprised by the failings of a paper-based media anymore.

After all, it is full steam ahead into the information age and the future of news-based mediums should be alive with innovation and creativity.

Newspapers can now shed their paper shackles and deliver news in more dynamic ways than ever before.

A story is not just a pairing of text and photography anymore — video, slideshows and interactive elements allow a story to jump off the screen instead of just laying flat on the page. Now everyone can contribute to the conversation, and no one has to wait until morning for breaking news.

To put it simply, news will never be the same.

Unfortunately, the behemoths of print are having trouble adapting to this new environment.

While some embrace the new technologies as bringing benefits to the newsroom and the reader, others have scoffed at the change, grasping at their nest egg of news on paper as a tradition that should never die.

But those savvy in the industry know better.

Gerald Marzorati, the New York Times’ assistant managing editor for new media and strategic initiatives, is questioning why people ever bother to pay for subscription to his paper.

When everything is online anyway and you no longer have to wait for the next day’s paper to arrive for news to break, why even bother paying for delivery?

But Rupert Murdoch is counting on this ignorance to keep the industry the way it always has been.

The man who is responsible for bringing Fox News to the masses is developing an iPad application called The Daily, which will be exclusive to the tablet.

Steve Jobs has thrown his support behind it too, even offering engineering talent to help in its creation.

And at $0.99 to download, Jobs and Murdoch are crossing their fingers this will be the future of journalism.

Unfortunately, this is a short-sighted effort.

The publication will be a ghetto of sorts with no links for bloggers to use or for Facebook and Twitter users to share with their friends.

Worse yet, The Daily will operate like a print newspaper.

That means the staff works all day, presses the publish button at midnight and doesn’t update until the next day.

Ultimately, the effort is a step in the right direction.

Tablets truly are the answer to newspapers in the digital age.

But how people interact and consume with news has changed dramatically since the coming of the Internet, and Murdoch’s plan shows a fundamental misunderstanding over this shift.

Without innovation and change, these mighty journalistic empires will fall behind (gasp) bloggers — the ones truly in touch with what a digital audience demands.


E-mail: danfleis@indiana.edu