The Urbanophile turns its attention in the latest post to the future of the U.S. newspaper. It's a long attention span --- that is, a long essay --- and author Aaron M. Renn devotes an exceptionally deep dive to the subject on economics and craft surrounding journalism and the newspaper.
In a few words, it's a post of no small wisdom. What it lacks in brevity it compensates for in thoroughness, which is a bit of a smarmy way of saying it could have been a few thousand words lighter and made all of its points.
Having said that, here are a few ideas it provides:
1. The newspaper's future is online and low-cost.
2. The local media need to be, well, local. No more national and international anything.
3. No more business news. Sports is outsourced.
4. News will be opinion and analysis-driven and much more partisan.
5. Outside content will need to be leveraged.
Other ideas in there: The print version might come back as a printed-out elite vehicle, like the vinyl album. A lot of citizen-generated journalism will make its way into the mix, and not all of it will be good. And the business model is a hybrid of advertising, subscriptions and foundations.
Now that I've truncated and oversimplified it, I'd suggest taking a few minutes to take it in.
