There’s been so much online discussion about the interview I did with Google’s (GOOG) Eric Schmidt on this subject that I thought I’d post a few more thoughts. (John Battelle snarkily notes that all the discussion has been online … that’s, of course, just the discussion you’re seeing, John, which isn’t the same thing as all the discussion; most people haven’t even seen a print copy of that issue of Fortune yet, but that’s another story.)
Immediately after this piece ran I had an interesting conversation with an astute observer of this stuff, who raised a good point. Is the right question, can newspapers be saved? Or is it, can the print editions of papers be saved? I think it’s clear now that only the first question is relevant. The distribution method shouldn’t matter. If print has to die or be seriously scaled back, so be it, though I think the online-only crowd does itself a disservice. There’s simply no way to re-create the serendipitous experience of reading a newspaper online. If you don’t read a paper, you will miss things. Period. (I know a print organization that is in the process of eliminating paid print subscriptions; that’s sad, but I digress.) The more important thing is saving the journalism that goes into it. And I fear that in the interim period between now, when online doesn’t begin to pay for news gathering, and later, when somebody figures out the business model, irreparable damage will get done to the trade. With respect, young people who get their training at your typical blog (of course there will be exceptions) aren’t going to learn how to be journalists.
It’s a sad state of affairs, and Battelle is right to compare it to the auto industry, something Jack Welch also does in a TV show on Fox News he and I appear on this Saturday morning.