2005 started with barely a whisper on the pages of newspapers and magazines about the impact of blogging, podcasting, better mobile devices, 3G and broadband in homes. It was as if the changes being talked about so openly in Asia, Europe and the United States was not relevant to Australia. The whispers gained some volume following Rupert Murdoch’s speech in Washington in April to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Then, in the last month, it’s as if someone has said it’s okay to talk about this stuff, it’s okay to speculate about our future. The whispers have become a shout.
Most of the capital city dailies have run stories about the impact of the Internet. The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Financial Review have written the most from what I have seen. This month’s Marketing magazine has an excellent if brief round up including an excellent piece by Martyn Thomas about whether newspapers will survive beyond 2040.
While I would have liked newspapers and business magazines to have paid more and earlier attention to the impact on mainstream media of technology and other changes noted above, their coverage now is welcome. I wish newsagents would pay the same attention to the changes going on around them. The old arguments about why people like newspapers over a computer screen are redundant. Newsagents and others ignoring the changes need to either get a new line or develop a business plan to help their business navigate the change.
The changes are inevitable as we can see from elsewhere in the world. What we need to understand and navigate is the impact.
Footnote: Maybe publishers could have frank dialogue with newsagents about what their experts see as the likely impact on the news and information supply chain.