Future of Newspapers?

Thought this article, Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable, tied in with my previous one about textbooks. A good read. Great discussion starter.

Here are a few snippets to get you interested:

One of the people I was hanging around with online back then was Gordy Thompson, who managed internet services at the New York Times. I remember Thompson saying something to the effect of “When a 14 year old kid can blow up your business in his spare time, not because he hates you but because he loves you, then you got a problem.”

Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism. For a century, the imperatives to strengthen journalism and to strengthen newspapers have been so tightly wound as to be indistinguishable. That’s been a fine accident to have, but when that accident stops, as it is stopping before our eyes, we’re going to need lots of other ways to strengthen journalism instead.

Clay Shirky, the author of the article, wrote the book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations.

[via Everything is Miscellaneous]
[Image:"Newspapers": Flickr: Uploaded on October 25, 2006 by laffy4k: http://www.flickr.com/photos/laffy4k/279511068/ [] Creative Commons]