Quote, unquote: On not sleepwalking into oblivion
"If you think about journalism, not business models, you can become rather excited about the future. If you only think about business models you can scare yourself into total paralysis."
-- Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, speaking in the Cudlipp Lecture about the controversy over paywalls, which he said could see the business "sleepwalking into oblivion". The full text of the lecture can be read here. And a video interview is available here.
posted by D. B. Scott at
12:52 pm
1 Comments:
My first thought was I appreciate him rah-rahing us on. But look at novelists – the classic example of writers who put passion over business models – and how they have to work other day jobs or marry well in order to support their passion. How can journalists avoid the same fate if the new business model is no living wage until you're famous, same as novelists?
Then I read the lecture. It's pretty great. He argues that readers are changing, and so we have to change with them. He offers a bunch of examples of journalism know-how and big company audience combining with reader specialist expertise to tell stories that neither could have told alone. It's energizing and passionate, but…
He still never answers how we're going to make a living at all this (though offers a faint hope that online advertising will finally soon pick up the print slack) so my first thought still stands too. Journalism – once a career, soon a hobby.
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