Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable

(Blog Post) When someone demands to be told how we can 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 ... Full Story »

Posted by Kaizar Campwala - via Columbia Journalism Review

See All Reviews »

Review

Kaizar Campwala
4.4
by Kaizar Campwala - Mar. 16, 2009

Shirky has an elegant way of framing the "newspaper problem". He asks us to step back, using the broadly analogous invention of the printing press and the chaos that followed. Excellent read.

Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism. For a century, the imperatives to strengthen journalism and to strengthen newspapers have been so tightly wound as to be indistinguishable. That’s been a fine accident to have, but when that accident stops, as it is stopping before our eyes, we’re going to need lots of other ways to strengthen journalism instead.

See All Reviews »

Kaizar's Rating

Overall
4.4

Good
from 13 answers
Quality
4.4
Information
4.0
Insight
5.0
Style
4.0
Context
5.0
Enterprise
3.0
Expertise
2.0
Originality
5.0
Relevance
5.0
Popularity
4.5
Recommendation
5.0
Credibility
4.0
More How our ratings work »