How will we get our news?

Monday, March 02, 2009 by Dave Winer.

It looks like journalism is dying. 

On Twitter, there are a lot of people arguing, and I wonder why.  

Much of the arguing goes like this: We need journalism. How will we do X, Y and Z if there's no journalism? The assumption seems to be that if I, Dave Winer, can't answer that question, then journalism is saved. The papers that are on the brink somehow just need me to be proven incapable of doing what they do, and that's it, crisis averted. It's ridiculously illogical. It makes absolutely no sense. Yet that is what comes back every damned time I approach subject which is -- How are we going to get our news after the newspapers go away? 

It's a serious question. 

Not an intellectual exercise.  

There's nothing really to argue about, is there? If so, I'm missing it. 

Dispassionately, please... 

1. The Rocky Mountain News, one of two papers in Denver, went under last week.  

2. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, one of two papers in Seattle, is on the edge. 

3. The San Francisco Chronicle, the only remaining paper in SF is on the edge. 

4. At least seven other papers are in the same place. 

5. The NY Times was just bailed out by a shady billionaire from Mexico.  

6. If you're thinking the government will bail out the papers, think about what we'd be left with. We'd have to come up with something else. 

So -- under what scenario do we have newspapers in, say, a year? I don't see one.  

How will we get our news? -- It's not an idle question to be debated after dinner with cigars. It's a critical question. 

At some point we will have to have this discussion. Imho, the sooner the better.