Jack Shafer, writing for Slate, strikes a different note in the media-are-dying chorus. His view is that the arrival of technology to enable a wider range of participants in the profession/craft means the arrival of a new, golden age.
"If the downside of the battered-down barriers to entry is less pay and lower status, the potential upside is that a flood of new entrants into the field could portend a journalistic renaissance," he writes.
Now, he admits this isn't going to mean every newcomer takes on exalted status and audience. "But journalism has generally benefited by increases in the number of competitors, the entry of new and once-marginalized players, and the creation of new approaches to cracking stories."
His conclusion: "Just because the journalism business is going to hell and it may no longer make economic sense to maintain mega-news bureaus at the center of war zones doesn't mean that journalism isn't thriving."
