“It is so refreshing for someone to speak openly about the death of the status quo. Who wants or needs the models that the consultants offer? Let's hear real ideas for the future. Thank you for starting the dialogue!” ”I find this discussion so intriguing, as the newspapers go out of business in major US cities (i.e. Rocky Mountain News), I have been thinking a lot about the state of local news, and I'm worried about it. What will happen to local TV news? My local newspaper? I am not convinced that just having news on the web is the answer either. Great post, I'll be back to read more.”
These are a couple of comments on our New Media Rights blog concerning the future of local news. Some experts have predicted the end of local news, as we know it on TV, and print. I ask people where they get their news, and most people don’t make the effort to read, or tune in a newscast. The most popular answer is, “I go to the web for information.” Does that mean, folks get better information, critical thought pieces, investigative journalism, or is that dying along with the old media. I was on a panel with Lucy Dalglish, a lawyer from the Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press in Washington D.C. She says democracy might be the looser here. Lucy adds, for an enlightened society to progress, it must have an open, free, and impartial press. Many are concerned much of that will be lost in the transition from old media to new media. In other words, will we be getting the same information from one source? Will we be force-fed the same information from one source? That one source would feed our ipod, computers, and other medias of the future?
As another panelist put it, I have never met a reporter from google out in the field. Bruce Wallace, the foreign editor for the Los Angeles Times was worried that there has been so much downsizing that critical newsgathering in areas like Africa, or South America may be abandoned. That could apply locally. Except in this case, the critical reports on government, business, and society in general may be eliminated. Enough with the doom, and gloom. My proposal is let’s be pro-active and come up with new ways of looking at journalism. I appreciate your comments.
