The explosion of new media … could make newspapers more vital, necessary, and useful than ever … We need what newspapers have always been – gatekeepers and wellheads, discussion leaders on politics and public-policy questions … They’ll have to chuck the stern schoolmarm’s voice. They’ll also have to really listen to us, not just pretend … We need distinct voices standing back, offering us detached versions of the best truth they can find in the most factual way … We need … a medium that gives its consumers nearly as much power as its reporters and editors have. A medium that isn’t afraid of unfettered discussions, intense passions, and unashamed opinion. A medium that recognizes we’ve already heard the headlines a dozen times.
Predictor: Katz, Jon
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 essay for Wired magazine, Jon Katz, the media critic for New York Magazine and a former executive producer for CBS News, discusses the future of newspapers in an Internet age. Katz writes:”Delivered to your door daily, newspapers are silent, highly portable, require neither power source nor arcane commands, and don’t crash or get infected … At their best, they have been fearless, informative, and heroic – exposing corrupt practices and crooked politicians, delving into health care and other complex issues. They can be deliciously quirky, useful, even provocative – filled with idiosyncratic issues and voices. They’re under siege, of course … the digital revolution has pushed them still closer to the wall, unleashing a vigorous flow of news, commentary, and commerce to millions and millions of people … The computer-news culture fosters a sense of kinship, ownership, and participation that has never existed in commercial media … But watching sober, proper newspapers online stirs only one image: that of Lawrence Welk trying to dance at a rap concert … So far, at least, online papers don’t work commercially or conceptually. With few exceptions they seem to be just what they are, expensive hedges against onrushing technology … The explosion of new media needn’t eliminate the traditional journalistic print function. Quite the opposite, it could make newspapers more vital, necessary, and useful than ever … We need what newspapers have always been – gatekeepers and wellheads, discussion leaders on politics and public-policy questions, distributors of horoscopes, sports listings, and comics. They’re not going to have a monopoly any more, and they don’t get to tell us only what they think we should know. They’ll have to chuck the stern schoolmarm’s voice. They’ll also have to really listen to us, not just pretend … We need distinct voices standing back, offering us detached versions of the best truth they can find in the most factual way. We need fair-minded if less arrogant fact-gatherers and opinion-makers to help us sort through the political, social, and cultural issues we care about but need help in comprehending. We need something very close to what a good newspaper is but with a different ideology and ethic: a medium that gives its consumers nearly as much power as its reporters and editors have. A medium that isn’t afraid of unfettered discussions, intense passions, and unashamed opinion. A medium that recognizes we’ve already heard the headlines a dozen times.”
Biography:Jon Katz was a 1990s technology columnist/journalist who wrote for Wired, Slashdot, HotWired and Rolling Stone. Part of his career was spent as a reporter and editor for the Boston Globe and Washington Post and as a producer for the CBS Morning News. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: Newspapers
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: Online or Not, Newspapers Suck: How Can Any Industry Which Regularly Pulls Doonesbury Strips for Being Too Controversial Possibly Hope to Survive Online?
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.09/news.suck_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney