The Future Of Newspapers

Is Medium the Future of the Media?

I love newspapers and magazines.

In fact, I have a history of being a bit obsessive about the printed word. I started a magazine in Seoul, South Korea for expats called ROKon Magazine several years ago and it was one of the most dramatic events of my life to date.

And don’t get me started about how star-struck I was when I met Arthur Sulzberger, Jr, publisher of the New York Times. You would have thought I had met a Beatle.

So the news of Jeff Bezos’ purchase of The Washington Post ranks up there with with the death of Kurt Cobain in the “Where were you when you found out?” factor. For me, at least.

Anyway, this news has me thinking, yet again, about the future of newspapers.

The fact that the Graham family was willing to sell such a beloved newspaper to a tech guy with no connection to the newspaper business means dramatic changes already afoot will accelerate. Newspapers have a unique position in the communities that they service — because of name recognition if nothing else — and they can leverage that in digital commerce. Bezos has proven himself to be an outside-the-box thinker and I suspect he will do some pretty cool stuff in that regard.

But another question is — do we even need centralized newspaper or magazine structures in the first place? Is it possible that things like Medium are the future of news distribution and name-brand reporters will use it — or something like it — to (eventually) make money off of their work online?

Either newspapers and magazines will finally “get” digital publishing or they will go out of business completely, to be replaced by things like a for-pay Medium or the individual blogs of name-brand reporters.

If traditional newspapers and magazines finally go under altogether en masse, a huge market will not be served because people will always be interested in news. How they get it may change, but there will always be demand for it.

But we should not take anything for granted now that The Washington Post has been sold. The New York Times is fair game now. And that chills me to the bone.