The Future of Newspapers?
First of all, the question mark means I am asking, and don’t have the answer.
One day a few months back, a colleague who works down at the Toronto Sun brought a delegation of Chinese up to the Canoe.ca offices to show them how the news gets online. For whatever reason, they ended up at my desk. After taking their last photo, they thanked me for giving them a tutorial and started off.
But then one gentleman stopped and turned to ask: “Do you think the web will replace newspapers?” Wow; talk about a loaded question, regardless of whether one of the editors of the Sun was standing there or not. Well, I danced the question a bit because, the truth is, who knows? I ended my hypothesis not with any words but by holding up my Blackberry and shrugging my shoulders in a “what about mobile?” unspoken gesture. He smiled from ear to ear. Seems he agreed…either that or he has stock in RIM.
But I’m only guessing there too. Frankly, I think we’re a lot closer to the future than we realize. If you’ve ever seen the subway scene in Minority Report, or the Daily Prophet in Harry Potter, you’ve seen the sci fi vision of disposable, and updatable, news in the future, complete with changing headlines and video.
Guess what? Digital paper exists. Wireless transmission of video? Easy. Or maybe you’ve heard of another video site out there too…youhoo, tube something, can’t recall. That one’s ok too. Auto-updating content? Yep. RSS, XML, AJAX…
All the ingredients are there for that fancy digital newspaper device seen in the movies. The fact that it might not be “paper” doesn’t matter. Newspapers will thrive as trusted brands that deliver the news in any device you see fit—maybe even newsprint.
