Newspapers … should, at last, accept that there is little of significance they get to tell us for the first time. They should stop hiding that fact and begin taking advantage of it. What they can do is explain news, analyze it, dig into the details and opinions, capture people and stories in vivid writing – all in greater depth than other media. They should get about the business of doing so.
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:”Newspapers might begin to think about reversing their long-standing priorities, recognizing that everyone with electricity has access to more breaking news than they provide, faster than they provide it. They should, at last, accept that there is little of significance they get to tell us for the first time. They should stop hiding that fact and begin taking advantage of it. What they can do is explain news, analyze it, dig into the details and opinions, capture people and stories in vivid writing – all in greater depth than other media. They should get about the business of doing so.”
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