Mary Newsom's presentation The Information Superhighway: Urban Renewal or Neighborhood Destruction? at IDEA09 in Toronto, lamented the decline of local newspapers and the impact of this loss on city culture.
- Newspaper industry is a ship in the ocean, taking on water, and its uncertain if it can be saved.
- Mass media is splintering. Circulation has been declining over decades. Not hard to imagine what happens if newspapers and TV goes away.
- Advertising was 80% of revenue for newspapers and 30-40% were from classifieds.
- Newspapers moved all content online because they assumed that online revenue would support content.
- Newspapers did not understand classified ads were an interaction between people. They thought they were selling space cause that’s what their sales people did.
- Online advertising for newspaper industry was less than 10% last year
- Newspaper reporters cover an event, writes a story, and it gets replayed across media. Every reporter wakes up one day to hear their story being read on TV.
- Newspapers had 100+ reporters, local TV station has 10+ Newspapers do best investigative journalism.
- The big sort: why like-minded social circles are causing issues in America. Perhaps something similar is happening in online social circles and tools. People share ideas with those who agree with them.
- May move into blog strucutres by democratizing journalism. Having more people comment and poke around makes things healthier.
- Country is made up of city and local economies. People are dependent on city for economic benefit (50% of people live in cities)
- Cities have cultures and cultures matter.