Tech startups big and small are fighting for dominance in a new market offering personalized, curated or DIY magazines that aggregate what can be an overwhelming roar of online news content into something more manageable and meaningful. Judging from the popularity of apps like Flipboard, they have a captive audience. [Read more…]
Journalism’s problem of scale demands a rethinking of the news product
I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to untangle the mass of conflicting visions about the future of the news industry. But recently I heard a phrase of unusual clarity: “Traditional journalism, as a process, does not scale.”
The person who spoke this line was Matt Berger, the director of digital media at Marketplace. What he meant was there is no business model that will support an organization with 100 reporters writing 100 stories (or, as we used to refer to the newsroom, 100 monkeys at 100 typewriters). [Read more…]