If newspapers die, what will all the blogger do for content?

The list of famous blogs and sites that get all there content from news sources is amazing. What a business model. But if these original sources for content and news disappear from the media landscape, what will all the bloggers do for fresh and new content?

Here’s a great story, Want To Know Why Newspapers Are Dying? from TechDirt which is a look at the Maureen Dowd article “Dinosaurs at the Gate”  and now my two cents.

In her recent New York Times op-ed, Maureen Dowd takes aim at Google, blaming it for the sorry state of the newspaper industry. Perhaps in hopes of winning people over to the newspapers’ side in the argument over how much Google should be profiting from their content, Dowd spends a lot of the article attempting to make the reader fear Google, trying to paint the company as anti-privacy and bent on “world domination.”

But there is a vaguely ominous Big Brother wall in the lobby of the headquarters here that scrolls real-time Google searches — porn queries are edited out — from people around the world. You could probably see your own name if you stayed long enough. In one minute of watching, I saw the Washington association where my sister works, the Delaware beach town where my brother vacations, some Dave Matthews lyrics, calories Panera, females feet, soaps in depth and Douglas Mangum, whoever he is.

The uselessness of this statement is hard to overstate. If you stayed long enough you’d see your name? She saw the names of places where her sister works and her brother vacations? Ever look at a phone book or a map, Maureen? All she was seeing was evidence that people are looking for information. 

And that is where Google adds value: it helps to connect people with the information they want. If Dowd would just pause the dramatics long enough, maybe she would recognize that this concept sounds very familiar. Just like newspapers have always done, Google tries to find information that its users want, and deliver it to them in a way that is useful — and news stories are just one example of what people want Google to find for them. Dowd quotes Rupert Murdoch calling what Google does “stealing.” But, Google is no more “stealing” the information to which it links than newspapers steal the events on which they report. It does not take much thinking to see the parallels. But hey, why take time to think when you can engage in some juicy fear-mongering and hyperbole? 

Like many others, Dowd also makes the mistake of equating the decline of newspapers with the end of journalism, ignoring the evidence that says this is simply not true. We’ve already pointed out examples of how journalism can not only survive but thrive apart from physical newspapers. Newspapers were valuable when they were the most convenient, useful way to deliver the news. The content itself was always practically free. But the value of the content was used draw eyeballs to ads — to give advertisers paid access to the community of readers. With the newspaper format now dying, entrepreneurs will find new ways to leverage the still-existent value of the free content to sell something scarce. 

Fear-mongering, making misleading statements, ignoring evidence, not understanding your own business — it’s ironic that, while attempting to blame others for the woes of her own industry, Dowd makes so many of the mistakes that are really contributing to its decline.

Who cares about Google, they produce nothing, they provide a service. That’s it. Period. Amen.
When they get in the content development business, Ms. Dowd will probably work for them or disappear from the landscape. Now here’s the real issue, that’s deep in the New York Times subconscious. Newspapers are dead, well dying but have a business model that is severely damaged. 

Here’s the bottom line on this issue, newspapers didn’t have the sense that god gave a goose. Newspaper didn’t recognize the power of the internet. So they gave their content away, except for a few, most just put out there for free. Now, they ‘re dead or extinct, to stick with Ms. Dowd’s metaphor, because printings is to expense, the unions have smoked them and most importantly they didn’t control their content. Now they want to go to court. Guess what, their going to loss, because they received unrealized value from all those bloggers point their reads to the newspaper sites for free, with no remuneration for the free advertising and their own long term stupidity. Guess what - you can’t turn back the clock thus all I can say is - goodbye. The gap will be filled but by who, I have no idea.

I will always love the feel of a newspaper and a well written article from a skilled newspaper person.
Goodbye, I’ll miss you and so will a lot of other people, they just don’t know it yet. 

MikeToots_watching the disappearance of the dinosaur - newspapers.

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