The Cedar Rapids Gazette boldly leaps into the (very near) future. It's not without very tough choices, but it also includes some slick (though unfortunately now dormant) experimentation. Steve Buttry has mutated from editor into "information content conductor" and is blogging about it. And smart guy Chuck Peters runs the whole shebang and blogs about it too.
They're doing important, cutting-edge work in Cedar Rapids. At least they're trying something different from the broken old newspaper model. Must be something good in the water there. Or the corn.
What's fascinating to me is how quickly this is happening. Within a couple of months, people across America have begun believing that the newspaper as we knew it might not survive. Within a few more months -- maybe less? -- those thoughts will become reality. A year from now, what we now call "newspapers" might be only a fond (or, for some, not-so-fond) memory.
Different models -- but linked by a break from the past, and an economic and journalistic need to race into the future -- are already here. It is an exciting, challenging, frightening and momentous time. THANKS, Mark, for keeping us current. And congratulations to the pioneers. The only problem is: Your work won't be recorded in the "press"!
Posted by: Dan Woog | March 08, 2009 at 09:08 PM
The days of newspapers produced by companies who have leveraged themselves into a financial hole are definitely numbered. The days of newspapers produced by companies who have been conservative in their borrowing are not numbered, at least not in the near-term. It's a key difference and, as Dan's comment proves, the general media splash of bankruptcy of some over-leveraged media companies gives the public an illusion that ALL newspapers are on the brink of collapse. I won't argue the business model for print papers is less strong, but it has not completely folded across the board and certainly isn't a "year from now" from happening.
Posted by: Mike Coleman | March 09, 2009 at 08:07 AM