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Media: Journalism isn’t the same thing as newspapers

I’m reading Clay Shirky’s fine essay on the state of the newspaper business, and I came across this paragraph:

Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism. For a century, the imperatives to strengthen journalism and to strengthen newspapers have been so tightly wound as to be indistinguishable. That’s been a fine accident to have, but when that accident stops, as it is stopping before our eyes, we’re going to need lots of other ways to strengthen journalism instead.

I’ve said this for years. The value of a newspaper isn’t that it’s printed on paper. It’s that the newspaper employs a staff of people to go out and gather the news. The printing press is simply a means of delivery. Until the Internet came along, it was a pretty good business to be in, the owning of a printing press.

This entry was posted on March 16, 2009 at 6:35 am and is filed under On the Media with tags , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “Media: Journalism isn’t the same thing as newspapers”

  1.   justme Says:
    March 16th, 2009 at 3:24 pm

    True, Billy, but until the Internet can become a more fiscally viable option for news organizations, quality journalists will not be able to make a profession of it.

    Sure, there are some organizations that have made it possible for journalists to make a living working on the Internet, but the community newspapers, TV stations and radio stations still are the most financially sound (such as they are) ways for many local journalists in whatever community to make a living.