Journalism Prof. on the Future of Newspapers

Here is a really thought-provoking interview with a very knowledgeable friend who is both an experienced newspaperman and also a journalism professor at a Christian college. This is an excerpt. To read the entire interview, click here.

Prof. Smith on future of papers

Interview with Prof. Michael Ray Smith (pictured), Department of Mass Communication, Campbell University, Buies Creek, N.C.

The San Diego paper is up for sale, the Miami paper is up for sale, the Minneapolis paper has missed an interest payment, the Chicago Tribune empire is in bankruptcy ... on and on we could go ... can you foresee major metro areas in the U.S. suddenly being without the printed word as their primary reliable source of information? If so, is this something terrible and deplorable or just an economic fact of life?

No. Here’s the benefit of a city. As long as we have cities, we will have commuters, who will want to read the news on the bus, train and subway. They tend to read on the way into work and the way home from work. Those commuters represent a strong, repeat audience.


Can adjustments be made to fill the gap and if so what would they be?

Absolutely. Content providers, once called newspapers, are experimenting with on-demand delivery particularly to mobile telephones. Telephones are computers and computers make moving information more convenient than ever. In some cases, information alerts and bursts can be downloaded from a source at work or home or even in transit and then read while on the road. As you know, reading now includes listening and viewing with the added feature that audiences can do their own indexing or searching to add to their interest in an audience.


Are there any metro areas that you think will always have papers, and if so which ones and why?

Two or three come to mind. 1) Washington, D.C., is the political capital of the nation and it is ripe not only for competing voices but as a nexus of political news that may be shared or sold to others as part of their news package. 2) New York City is the financial capital of the nation and the intersection of entertainment, popular culture, wealth and power, which makes it a city that will attract an audience that is restless to be in the know. 3) Los Angeles is the entertainment capital and it is hungry for information that will help audiences sense the direction of its No. 1 export.