Is newspaper in crisis? It may be absolutely true. If so, how many
industries and jobs are not in crisis these days? I think there are less and
less professions that are in stable position without influence of the rapid
changes in technology and social system. The crisis is not simply a newspaper
industry issue. Thus, it is not time to panic, which, I think, should be a point
of departure.
Anyhow, next question will be how
to save “Private Ryan?” The answer may be very simple: how to reach,
inform, and satisfy the expectations of audiences. Of those, it seems that while how to
reach and inform seems to be deeply associated with technology, how to satisfy
the expectation is about news content. The former, I think, is relatively
easier to handle than the latter. However, when dealing with the issue of
crisis in traditional media, especially newspaper, it seems that technology is mainly
emphasized. It’s clearly true that journalists no longer stand “at the mouth of
a vast assembly line of information” due to development of technology in many areas.
They, thus, are gradually losing their control over content and format. However,
journalists still stand at the place where they can have exclusive access to more valuable information and news sources. It means that journalists can provide something
novel that create value and that ordinary people cannot offer. Few readers and
viewers would be contented to pay for information without something special and
uniqueness, no matter how easily they can get it.
There is another
interesting solution to save newspaper in crisis; that is about payment system.
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