Where journalists have greatness thrust upon them
Not my words but the words of Ian Dunt for politics.co.uk.
He talks about the Times Online's decision to implement a pay wall in June by charging £1 per day or £2 a week for their content. He also discusses the possibility of the Indie becoming free by the end of the year.
I like his view that journalism shouldn't go down the road of being fully funded by advertising and become free to consumers:
In 1958 Disney presented their vision of the future in an episode of a TV show entitled Magic Highway USA. Watching it, it becomes evident that this vision was heavily influenced by fordism and the significance of the car to American culture, but it was also clearly an overly optimistic vision. Little of this view has actually come to pass – or even looks ever likely to happen. Compare it now with Microsoft’s equally optimistic, March 2009 vision of the future in 2019. Is Microsoft’s vision realistic? Or will it suffer the same fate as Disney’s predictions?
Perilous and difficult as predictions of the future are, this 5-part series of articles seeks to answer these questions over the week or so by delivering a thoughtful and realistic view on what the new decade may hold in store for us in terms of technological advancement and innovation.
If you want to hazard a guess into the future of the human race, this video suggests a few things which might come up...some are particularly thought provoking, whilst others are just scary to think about...
No-one could have predicted the events of 2008, but The Economist's predictions for next year (the world in 2009), got me thinking: what will be the big stories next year? And beyond that, what are the most important stories to me that will be taking place in the coming 12 months?
For me, the biggest story will be taking place almost twelve months from now, in Copenhagen.
The endgame for the newspaper is in sight, says Philip Meyer, hack-turned-professional-doomsayer and author of The Vanishing Newspaper. That 2005 book is commonly quoted as predicting April 2043 as the date on which the last New York Times appears - although in fact his model suggests the industry would have capitulated long before that.
