Here's Reason #1.

I read a great article this morning that presents the dilemna of the newspaper industry in terms of a revolution that has already begun to happen towards a future that is still undefined. From Shirky.com. Here are some of the points he makes (and you simply must read the entire article).

• -The problem of making content available to the public via the publishing industry is no longer an issue.
• - People asking about what system will happen to replace newspapers are asking to be lied to.

When someone demands to know how we are going to replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won’t break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren’t in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to.

• -The costs of printing are nullified by the internet method where everyone pays for the infrastructure and everyone gets to use it, as opposed to only those who help subsidize, for example, printing presses.
• -The Big question is who, if the industry goes away, will cover the news?
• -Society doesn't need newspapers, society needs journalists. The imperative is not to save the current institutions but to figure out what will work. The writer makes the point that the way and method that the publishing industry has come about is at least, in part, accidental. So, what is there to be scared of in this next journalistic revolution that is also somewhat accidental and experimental?

For the next few decades, journalism will be made up of overlapping special cases. Many of these models will rely on amateurs as researchers and writers. Many of these models will rely on sponsorship or grants or endowments instead of revenues. Many of these models will rely on excitable 14 year olds distributing the results. Many of these models will fail. No one experiment is going to replace what we are now losing with the demise of news on paper, but over time, the collection of new experiments that do work might give us the reporting we need.

I want to expand upon that last comment in an upcoming post. I believe that people have a real need to know what the news is, and no matter what the venue, that will continue in some form or another.