The future of newspapers

In case you hadn't noticed, there is a huge debate under way online about the future of newspapers. Several things seem to have prompted this: The economic slowdown, Tribune Co.'s bankruptcy declaration, the financial problems of the New York Times and, here in Canada, the near death experience Canwest Global is having. Three pieces seem useful today on this topic. Doug Firby, former editorial page editor of the Calgary Herald, speculates on the future of Canwest in Maclean's, while Alan Mutter, former newspaper exec turned Silicon Valley info exec, offers some fairly hard-headed business analysis of the paper-on-the-web idea. There's been much good stuff on the Mutter site on these matters of late, so a tour of his archives would be worthwhile for those interested in the topic. Perhaps the most interesting piece, though, isn't about newspapers at all. The current edition of The Economist has a piece on YouTube and Hula.com and their respective records in attracting paid advertising. The magazine argues that the fact Hula.com has ad dollars rolling in, despite the fact it isn't nearly as popular with users as YouTube is due to the fact the content on Hula is created by professionals, while any amateur is welcome to post almost anything on YouTube. The message, of course, is that good content can still pay its way, even online, while the other kind, including most of what you can read on blogs proporting to be 'news' sites, is worth exactly what it cost you to access it. The big problem, of course, is that it will take some time for professional news sites to gain enough of an audience to start paying their way and it may never happen. Until then, somehow, we'll just have to keep publishing newspapers, even if that means reworking the business formula to make that possible.