All the news that's fit to blog | Perspectives | CNET News.com:
It's true and inevitable that the readership and paid subscribers to print media will continue declining. The real coffin nails in the demise of Big Media, though, are the gradual loss of advertising revenue and increasing costs of printing and distribution. They cannot sustain their infrastructure amid these cost and revenue pressures. Recall that the NY Times recently announced hundreds of layoffs. They must reinvent themselves or risk further decline, particularly as they face the threat of the Google/Yahoo/Microsoft online ad machine. Mainstream media had best re-read the cluetrain manifesto.
Nevertheless, in a democracy, we all stand to lose if the big ($)bucks needed for newsgathering and reporting by Big Media dry up without being replaced by other worldwide, trusted sources. Except in a few circumstances, bloggers are not news gatherers. They are overwhelmingly amateur commentators and analysts. We continue to need competent, professional news gatherers.
"Markoff and Swisher are smart cookies who are clued into the technology business. But there's a shift under way in which authority is being transferred to authors with no accountability other than to themselves and their readership. Does it matter? Should it matter? The mainstream media can look down its nose at the blogosphere, but the numbers tell a different story. More people than ever are reading blogs because of shared affinities and it's coming at the expense of print newspapers."
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