The demise of newspaper v.1395

The other night on a newscast from one of the Twin Cities television stations, a story was aired on the strides made this past year in Web sites offered by news entities. It was very much check-book journalism for the stations that aired the story. Most of the three minutes or so was devoted to touting how great their Web site was.

One of the individuals interview got so giddy he boldly proclaimed that newspapers as we know them today would perish from the face of the earth in the next few years. I couldn't help but laugh, considering we heard this same verdict from Ted Turner nearly three decades ago (he was wrong), Bill Gates two decades ago (he was wrong) and a host of other empty-headed prognosticators (they were all wrong).

Has the newspaper industry changed fundamentally over the past several decades? Yes it has and that's precisely the reason why I think predictions of its demise are greatly exaggerated. Everyone from market analysts to reporters in the newsroom have been amazed at how quickly most newspaper companies have adapted to the new technologies.

Today's reporter no longer approaches a story with only a notebook and pen in hand. He also shoots images to be published in the printed version as well as online. He records audio for sound bites and video to be edited into moving vignettes of local news. Twenty years ago, no one would have believed the day would ever come when paper and ink would simply be one of a line-up of publishing endeavors for a typical communications company.

And really that's what it's all about. Newspapers that realize they are not in the printing business but in the communication business do best in responding to the high tech challenges as they arise. There will always be those companies out there who, like the dinosaur, refuse to adapt and yes, expect them to become extinct.

But don't count out the williness of publishers to diversify and fight for their place in the communications spectrum. Newspaper people have always been a scrappy bunch and that seems to be the one aspect of the industry Turner, Gates and many other seems to have missed in their calculations.