Saul Colt, in his blog today, has done it! He has the solved the problem of newspapers. And the answer if 3D! Hmmm… I’m having a “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” flashback. Wasn’t the answer 42, and not 3D… anyways…
Saul Colt’s Blog, the “Smartest Man in the World” wrote today in his blog that newspapers need to focus on 3D or 3 Discussions. His posting is http://saulcolt.blogspot.com/2010/06/solution-to-problems-of-newspapers-is.html . The gist of his solution is that newspapers need to focus on balanced reporting. As long as they are one-sided in their reporting, newspapers ” as a whole will not fulfill the unspoken promise of reporting a story.” Certainly, most of the newspaper journalists I know are trying to write balanced stories. However, I expect that many newspapers, tabloids and magazines are, in fact, not interested in the slightest in balanced reporting. I imagine National Enquirer, Us, or the Globe would be strangely dull and boring, and worse, riddled with the truth. While they might “fulfill the unspoken truth”, they would likely lose their core readership or be out of business in no time flat.
As to being the solution to the problem of Newspapers, it likely wouldn’t slow the slide in circulation, end the bleeding of classified revenues, balance the discrepancy between print and online ad revenues, reverse the trends of lower ROP ad revenues, won’t make the Internet go away, or get back all of the journalists who have lost their jobs to industry down-sizing over the past 15 years. But, it is the ideal that they teach in Journalism school, and maybe for those papers that have lost their way, it is a good place to begin. For most newspapers, it is probably a much more complex and varied set of solutions.
Huh? What do you think?