Last Post Addendum: Demise of the Newspapers

Clay Shirky, on the demise of newspapers in a blog post entitled "The Newspaper Industry and the Arrival of the Glaciers":

"So I'm calling bullshit on the Rosenbaum thesis, because no one has been "caught up in this great upheaval." Caught up? That makes it sound like a tornado. This change has been more like seeing oncoming glaciers ten miles off, and then deciding not to move."

A few days ago Alex suggesting that I add a bit regarding the latest round of newspaper collapses to my final post.  He also pointed me towards the above -linked blog post by Clay Shirky.  Since then I have been compiling my thoughts on the topic and trying to formulate my own conclusion.  Well, here is my profound insight: I agree with Clay.

Seriously though, the very first thing that comes to mind when I see every seemingly shocked newspaper executive blaming their apparently sudden downfall on a million different reasons is how absurdly incompetent they must be to have assumed that the dynamic of their problem would just suddenly vanish when it is caused by such a fundamental change and has been so long coming.  

The parallels of this collapse to that of the music industry - an area that I have studied closely as a music producer, audio engineer, and intern at a music-law firm - are numerous, and the lack of corporate response equally ludicrous.  The internet changed everything in audio and newspapers.  When the first digital mediums for capturing audio were developed the industry succeeded for the most part in crippling consumer hardware to prevent end-users from making copies of digital audio tapes - which for the first time could be made without generational quality loss.  Then the internet came along.  Just like that these perfect copies could be traded over a global network without any marginal cost.  Hmmm.  What specific factors does Shirky pin the demise of the newspaper biz on? 

"It didn't take much vision to figure out that unlimited perfect copyability, with global reach and at zero marginal cost, was slowly transforming the printing press into a latter-day steam engine."

There you have it.  The music biz (at least in its traditional form) and the newspaper biz are dying the same slow and painful death of the very same symptoms. 

The future of each of these industries is also running in parallel.  People still want to listen to music and still have a need for information, they just don't have to go the the same old places to get it.  CDBaby and TuneCore are taking advantage of everything the internet has to offer and connecting bands directly with fans.  Likewise, niche blogs and news sites are emerging to give people their informational fix up to the minute - without the need to pick up any pesky paper at the newsstand.

The major-label fat cats and old-media CEOs should play a round of golf together sometime.  Their schedules will certainly be open enough in the not so distant future...