In lamenting the cutbacks he says are destroying the Los Angeles Times, Sasha Abramsky says its an industry-wide problem that is driven more by a relationship breakdown with readers than a profit grab by shareholders who, up until this point, have been taking a large part of the blame.
It’s not that there isn’t an appetite for international reporting and serious investigative work in the US Rather it’s that the symbiotic relationship between readers and newspapers has broken down.
He says “the internet risks killing off the goose that keeps laying its golden eggs”, particularly if what he calls a ‘critical mass’ of people cancel their print subscriptions because they can get the same content for free from online news services like Google or Yahoo.
But the internet also presents amazing opportunities. That a business can’t effectively harness those opportunities presented to it will simply see market forces at work. Innovative and creative people, taking an entrepreneurial approach, will drive the market - as they always have. I don’t believe for a second that news is just a commodity, but it is and has always been a profit-making business.
People will still be informed, as long as the media in their community don’t allow themselves to get left behind.
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