A more recent than not change in the newspaper world is the lack us the word “newspaper” to describe the business. This is as much public fluff and PR as it is anything else.
It’s all great and good to move forward and evolve a little, but its another thing altogether to wake up and not be a “newspaper” anymore. Quite contrary, there’s a lot to be said about semantics and the way people perceive words, but I fear that these newspapers aren’t doing anything more than fooling themselves.
There’s a lot more to being an “information source” or “data center” than meets the ear. To truly evolve into a product that people want to interact with (yes I said interact, just reading text and viewing images and video isn’t enough anymore) newspapers need more than just a new motto or mission statement.
Sure changing those things I’m sure is a shock to some people in these newsrooms but what they’re not saying as much about it the dramatic change in culture that is required of a shift from one focus (a printed product with an online product as a second class citizen) to another.
What I’m trying to say is that it’s going to take more than these semantic changes to “save” the newspaper industry. It takes more than just information to hold an audience. It takes conversations, transparency, and interaction to have ANY effect on people.
There needs to be a massive shift in culture and personnel before newspapers can truly change into information centers and local resources in the online world. This can be achieved in many ways, but its going to take more than just removing the newspaper moniker from the vocabulary of the newsroom.
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