There, there, Ron
Jeff Jarvis thinks the decline of old media and traditional journalism is the fault of old media and traditional journalists, for not embracing new technology and being out of touch with their market. Ron Rosenbaum is angry that Jarvis won’t let journalists have their precious victim role. Jarvis responds:
Whether we save all the journalists today is entirely another matter and not my goal. Rosenbaum believes that makes me heartless. I think it makes me realistic. And we need some realism in this business. If Rosenbaum really wants to dislike someone, he might turn his spitballs toward my friends Scott Karp and Seth Godin, who declare that “the market and the internet don’t care if you make money.” There is no divine right for newsroom jobs. Nor is printing and trucking an eternal verity of the field. There is, instead, a need for journalism. That’s the problem to solve. That’s the opportunity to follow.
I’m purely a consumer of journalism. I have enormous respect for good reporters who do interesting reporting. I have little sympathy for those journalists who no longer get as large a piece of the pie as they’re used to because they refuse to deliver the kind of journalism people want in the form we want it.
Here’s the aformentioned Scott Karp on the issue:
Here’s the bitter truth — the feared loss of civic value is not the basis for a BUSINESS.
The problem with the newspaper industry, as with the music industry before it, is the sense of ENTITLEMENT. What we do is valuable. Therefore we have the right to make money.
Nobody has the right to a business model.
I’ve rarely heard anyone start by asking what the market values. Where are the pain points in the market? How can we solve problems for people? You know, business 101.
