Making up for some slack.Life without the print edition. It is coming closer each day.
Doing the bare minimum to get buy doesn't cut it. Some are learning, slowly, it is just too late for them now. They have run out of oxygen and are still far from the summit. They only learn when the out-of-sight/out-of-mind attitude catches up to them.
Don't worry about problems or issues until they affect you, right? It is a very contagious form of apathy.
I will find myself taking a voluntary exit from the world of journalism in the coming months to negate any forcible exit that might come my way. Larger outlets can't keep up with the lies of the 24-hr news networks and the instantaneous influx of information that is flooding the lanes of the information super highway. The smaller outlets are far to oblivious to what is going on in their industry.
When employees only knowledge of what to do when a server is down for a period of time is to turn off their system and wait around with arms crossed it gets pretty scary for any hope of survival in the "new media" or "web 2.0" age.
Self interest, the greatest motivator of all. After all it is our instinct to survive and protect ourselves, but this does not lend it'self well to prospering as a society.
"It takes money to make money."
"It's the cost of doing business."
"You get what you pay for."
These are things publishers don't understand. There is a gaping void between the reality that is and the reality that is perceived by them. The medium is dying. The adaptation isn't occurring in sync. Like the do-do, elephant bird and (depending on who you ask) the ivory-billed woodpecker coming soon to this list will be the morning edition.
The Internet should have been something all forms of media floated too like the a moth to the glow of a lamp. (you know, attacking it with an earnest curiosity to learn it's possibilities) The web was just what the news industry was wanting. The ability to provide on-demand information and content in real time.
Instead, the television and radio news industries took it, while the newspaper industry sat back at watched.
What sells papers are the obituaries and wedding announcements. No longer is it information or insight. Even with a paper's attempt to transition to the web, What continues to overwhelm the hits counter are the obituaries and advertisements. I guess it is the bright colors that draw them to the "Win a free Ipod" banner rather than the story about children struggling in school because funding was used improperly.
I could continue, but I will stop here.
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