Monday, January 19, 2009

A thoughtful essay on news media's future

Geneva Overholser and Geoffrey Cowan have written an excellent essay for the Los Angeles Times laying out the problems facing American media about as well as I've seen. Two points, neither new but the most important items to remember as we contemplate today's media landscape: (1) People not only are just as interested in news as in the past, but perhaps even more interested, and (2) the media delivery business model is broken.

So how do we reconcile the two? Overholser and Cowan suggest a few ways. I believe others will come to the fore as American society wrestles with the dilemma. A few weeks ago, Rupert Murdoch suggested that newspapers will survive, but not some of today's newspaper leaders. I believe he's correct -- especially for those who aren't embracing change (other than just to cut content).

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