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December 12, 2010
In Let Us Pay at the London Review of Books John Lanchester addresses the problem faced by the newspaper industry as a result of the ongoing migration of readers and advertisers towards digital media.
He says that:
Its underlying problems are to do with the net: loss of circulation and ad revenue are both driven by the rise of new media. Its opportunities come from the net too: that huge new army of readers. The industry is no longer going off a cliff, but it is still on a downward slope, and unless something happens to stop it, costs per copy will continue to rise relative to sales, and eventually newspapers will either die or (more likely) be so hollowed out by cost-cutting that they exist as freesheets with a thin, non-functioning veneer of pretend journalism.
He acknowledges that the press has many flaws---eg., news is entertainment and entertainment is news; a pack mentality and the idea that only things which are being already covered in the media are worth covering; a general retreat from the principles of serious journalism, investigative journalism, and a horror of complicated ideas; amnesia; a default setting to knee-jerk populism.
However, we still need the press because the press is just about the only force which resists governments arrogating more power to themselves, and without the press our democracy would head the way that papers themselves risk heading, and become hollowed out, with the external apparatus of democratic machinery but without the informed electorate which the press helps create.
Lanchester adds that though the fact that newspapers are necessary does not mean that they will survive. He adds that, if a solution to this slow decline is going to be found, then it will be in the form of a market mechanism. No one has found it yet. The one on trial is the paywall mechanism, but few are willing to follow Murdoch down this route because the collapse in circulation and limited income stream.
He argues that their cost base will force them to junk their print editions and shift to digital only with a simple and easy method of payment so that readers can create an individualised newspaper.
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The press ought to challenge to the monopoly of information.Isn't it their job to enlightened us citizens about what is being done in their name and have shown the corruption, incompetence – and sometimes wisdom – of our politicians, corporations and diplomats.