How The Telegraph Was Supposed To Kill The Newspaper Business
from the yeah,-so-that-didn't-happen dept
It seems like the old telegraph system is suddenly getting lots of new attention. A few weeks back, we wrote about some lessons from the old telegraph system that could be enlightening in the net neutrality debate. And, now, James Gattuso points us to a fun read over at The Economist about how people freaked out that the telegraph was going to kill newspapers. There was concern about how this device would lead to destroying quality reporting, getting people to focus more on the quick hits, and that there would be less reason to do "real" reporting -- leading to more annoying opinion writing, rather than actual journalism. Sound familiar? Of course, it didn't work out that way:What lessons does the telegraph hold for newspapers now grappling with the internet? The telegraph was first seen as a threat to papers, but was then co-opted and turned to their advantage. "The telegraph helped contribute to the emergence of the modern newspaper," says Ford Risley, head of the journalism department at Penn State University. "People began to expect the latest news, and a newspaper could not succeed if it was not timely."
Today, papers are doing their best to co-opt the internet. They have launched online editions, set up blogs and encouraged dialogue with readers. Like the telegraph, the internet has changed the style of reporting and forced papers to be more timely and accurate, and politicians to be more consistent. Again there is talk of news being commoditised and of the need to focus on analysis and opinion, or on a narrow subject area. And again there are predictions of the death of the newspaper, with hand-wringing about the implications for democracy if fewer publications exist to challenge those in authority or expose wrongdoing.
The internet may kill newspapers; but it is not clear if that matters. For society, what matters is that people should have access to news, not that it should be delivered through any particular medium; and, for the consumer, the faster it travels, the better. The telegraph hastened the speed at which news was disseminated. So does the internet. Those in the news business use the new technology at every stage of newsgathering and distribution. A move to electronic distribution--through PCs, mobile phones and e-readers--has started. It seems likely only to accelerate.
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Filed Under: journalism, newspapers, predictions, telegraph
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Big Difference
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Re: Big Difference
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Re: Big Difference
The internet changes that process, so trying to compare these two things is just meaningless, a very poor example. I suspect this is just one of Mike's nice little place holder posts that he will link to later to support some other concept he has going.
Instead of "buggy whip, buggy whip, buggy whip" we are going to hear "telegraph hater" or something along those lines. It's sad, because it is just a very poor parallel that doesn't even hold up to cursory inspection.
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Re: Re: Big Difference
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Re: Big Difference
The point of the piece, though, is that it actually did change the way newspapers got their news, and how newspapers had to act in order to take advantage of the technology.
The fact that few people had access to the telegraph is a difference in this scenario but a meaningless one once you think about it.
The larger point: newspapers can adapt to new technologies does stand. It's just that they need to change. In the past their business was very different, and the telegraph changed it. The same is true in the internet era.
No one claimed that the internet was *like* the telegraph. Just that it similarly freaked out newspapers until they realized they could adapt.
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Re: Re: Big Difference
Telegraph ended up with the newspapers getting more timely news, which in the end bolstered their product. It may have also cost some people their jobs along the way.
Internet? The newspapers end up being cut out of the news business entirely. It short circuits the process, making it that a very small group of people can report pretty much all of the regional, national, and international news.
It isn't changing the way newspapers get the raw material for the newspapers, it's the process of eliminating newspapers as a news source. It isn't at all comparable.
Well, unless you comparison is "some people freak out over change", which is rather broad brush approach to trying to make a point. Perhaps we can revisit this when you link this story from someone else claiming that you have shown that newspapers are freaking out for nothing?
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Re: Re: Re: Big Difference
I personally have found out for myself that with the advent of RSS I'm not tied any more to any particular news source. I have a start-page, where I have a couple of different feeds. I might end-up reading an article in the Times, an article here, and an article in some other site. So far all is free, but if each of them made me pay, it would be a real pain in the neck. However, I would as much be sorry about if they go out of business and I had to read some blogs to get my news. Not that I'm not going to get the news, but I'm going to regret not enjoying the literary style of professional reporters.
So what is the best business model? In my opinion there ought be some form of consortium -- say 50 to a 100 sites -- that all join in, and that you can subscribe to for a nominal fee and have access to everything. A single-sign-on type of thing. That way the papers are going to get their money and the audience is going to get on-line news without suffering a loss of quality.
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Re: Re: Big Difference by vicson5
I definitely have to agree with this statement. I hardly even read the news anymore except for on my RSS reader on my phone. It's gotten to the point that, even if you have regular news on events or subjects that I care about, if your full articles aren't displayed with your RSS feed, I generally won't bother reading your site much.
So what is the best business model? In my opinion there ought be some form of consortium -- say 50 to a 100 sites -- that all join in, and that you can subscribe to for a nominal fee and have access to everything. A single-sign-on type of thing. That way the papers are going to get their money and the audience is going to get on-line news without suffering a loss of quality.
I think there would be too many problems with setting up a system like this.
I had some other points I wanted to discuss, like whether there would be licensing fees charged by each news site, with yearly contracts that could potentially have those fees go up every year (we know that's not out of the question) that could potentially doom a project like this to failure.
But now my mind is racing about how awesome a system like I described in #2 could be. They could even set it up so that the users could, to a degree, crowdsource the tags on each news article, where if a percentage of the readers all suggested a particular tag, it would automatically be added right in with the tags defined by the author. You would also need to have a way to specifically ignore certain sources, preferably with your own personal input going directly to any source you ignore, to let them know what they're doing wrong..
Okay, I'm done for now.
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Re: Re: Re: Big Difference by vicson5
"Google it!"
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Re: Re: Re: Big Difference
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Its killing newspapers
CNET praising MIRO the king(GOM would be in ASIA)
http://download.cnet.com/Miro/3000-13632_4-10587758.html
Others forms of news are sprouting
https://miroguide.com/genres/News
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Grain of salt people (some, a whole F*@$'n truck load)
The case of the telegraph simply highlights what the industry saw as a threat, and how they were able to adept to the changes in turn creating a new product that gave the consumer what they desired, more up-to-date content.
Most importantly the "concern about how this device would lead to destroying quality reporting, getting people to focus more on the quick hits, and that there would be less reason to do "real" reporting -- leading to more annoying opinion writing, rather than actual journalism" is still valid today. However, there is an increasing majority of people who find that the newspapers are no longer the best sources to get that type of journalism.
The problem isn't that people don't have access to the device which helps speed up the news dissemination, it's that they have more "newspapers" to choose from. Instead of having to rely upon the Washington Post or the New York Times to inform people whats happening internationally, people can access the international outlets themselves or various other reporting organizations.
The greatest difference between these scenarios and the largest contributing hindrance to newspapers ability to compete with modern technologies is that anyone with access to a computer can be the journalist, not just the person hired by the news organization. In other words, a publisher is no longer required in order to produce news. If a major story breaks and someone with a half decent understanding of basic English can summarize up the events that occurred before anyone else is able to via a means like digg, youtube, twitter, etc... it then becomes nearly impossible to compete as the desired outlet.
It's up to Newspapers to decide how they are going to create a reason for their customers to only want to obtain their news from a singular entity. It's going to be incredibly difficult, especially when they are charging premiums while others are giving away their content for free. Not to mention that in todays day and age if you're only reporting once every 24hrs, you better have some pretty exclusive content.
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Re: Grain of salt people (some, a whole F*@$'n truck load)
The case of the telegraph simply highlights what the industry saw as a threat, and how they were able to adept to the changes in turn creating a new product that gave the consumer what they desired, more up-to-date content.
The telegraph didn't upset the apple cart, it didn't change the process, it didn't cut anyone out of the game (except perhaps a few home town reporters who were passing their time in Washington). It moved the news faster, but it didn't change where the consumer got their news from.
The internet? It changes everything, because the newspaper is no longer required as the filter and distribution vehicle, everyone in the world can get the same news story from the same one source, without any other distribution required.
The greatest difference between these scenarios and the largest contributing hindrance to newspapers ability to compete with modern technologies is that anyone with access to a computer can be the journalist, not just the person hired by the news organization.
Nope, that isn't it at all. Citizen journalists are not the true issue, the true issue is the path of the news. Written by a citizen journalist or by a pro writer, the internet changes how it is delivered, and the scope of that delivery.
Look at it this way: Reuters no longer needs newspapers, as Reuters can just offer direct access to their stories to everyone. There is no need to actually have the story typeset locally for distribution, all of those stories can be done in one place for everyone in the world. No local input required.
Further, it reverses the process. Rather than local papers purchasing national and internation stories from reuters, the reverse could be true: Reuters could purchase local stories to fill out their service to offer local to International news for everyone in a single site.
The difference between the effects of the telegraph and the effects of the internet is so huge as to be incomparable. It is laughable to try to draw any parallel.
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Re: Re: Grain of salt people (some, a whole F*@$'n truck load)
And I said nothing to the contrary, why you can't derive that from a very easily understandable keyword of 'highlight' I don't know...
"Citizen journalists are not the true issue, the true issue is the path of the news.
Did you even read the rest of the paragraph much less th rest of my post you're arguing against here, because that's exactly what I said?
"It is laughable to try to draw any parallel."
A modern technology that comes along and revolutionizes the way humans can communicate, nope no parallels there.
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Although, I personally I enjoy reading on paper and not digital devices. This may have to do with prescription glasses and glare. Not sure.
I would not compare written with verbal forms of News as a medium either. I believe the telegraph may have accelerated newspaper sales due to spurts of information causing the reader to read the paper for full stories. I can listen to an hour of speech and possible forget all the details and only remember the highlights. Reading for me uncovers details otherwise missed when listening to someone speak.
Computing devices really do have the ability to replace paper, so I would see this as the only true threat the "paper" has seen as a form of sharing text. The computer screen what paper does and much, much more. The difference is the way we erase and share this “internet paper”.
However verbal communications and reading cannot replace one another as they offer different solutions to difference people. Verbal is needed for blind people. Text is needed for deaf people. Brail is needed for blind and deaf people.
I will always enjoy printing a twenty-five document and reading it with my yellow highlighter. My laptop cannot give me this experience in the same way.
The newspaper business should focus entirely on online publishing and build their business up from there. The tablet PC explosion ius coming very soon. Offer newspaper versions to those that would like to pay the cost with maybe $50 annual billing cycles. They should be able to make money through advertising and special reports. If they can’t figure out how to make money online then they should walk over to Google’s office in San Francisco and hire the first fool that walks out of the building.
Hope this helps “NewsPaper” people.
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