Saturday, March 07, 2009

There's No Yellow Page Listing for Whale Tallow

In a quite pessimistic essay on the future of the newspaper by James DeLong, there are several takeaway nuggets. Or as one other writer recently said, here's the 140 words for the Twitter generation:

The role of gatekeeper and certifier of expertise has largely departed, and they have lost their position as the only game in town for those who want to be informed. Experts can reach out on their own. Slovenly reporting and bias are illuminated.

and

When Hurricane Napster hit the music industry in 1999, the news biz did not sympathize with the recording industry. The editorials were full of comments about “the need to adapt” and “don’t protect broken business models.”

Still, the real strength of DeLong's work -- and it's well worth the time you'll need to invest in it -- is his revelation of something that's been a regular meme in this space: many parts of this change in media is a change, really, in technology.

He highlights three previous great changes in media, although may favorite is the second one:

The nature of the newspaper itself—a cheap, portable, disposable, random access device that could serve as a platform for content of all kinds. Think of it as 19th-century broadband.

At the end, you get the sense that DeLong is OK with these shifts, and thus the main reason why today we buy compact flourecent light bulbs and don't worry about trimming our wicks and restocking the whale tallow for tomorrow night's reading.

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