Old Media v. Blogs: The War That Time Forgot
Jonathan Last over at the Philadelphia Inquirer has a very traditional, and largely accurate, "blogs ain't all that" plaint, echoing themes that have been sounded by, for random example, our own Tim Cavanaugh in misty days of yore. But his wrap-up is not supported by any details in the rest of the article:
Do the [traditional media] have problems? Sure. Are some journalists bad at their jobs? Absolutely. But taken as a whole, the Old Media performs an enormous and valuable function that the New Media is neither able, nor inclined, to emulate.
And the marketplace is slowly coming to understand that.
Certain available evidence, like this Fortune article pointing out big media share prices and circulations falling, seem to cast doubt on that conclusion (though I do notice that "death of Old Media" article almost never discuss profit margins and their rise or fall for those companies). Is there any solid evidence that the marketplace has any growing understanding, slowly or otherwise, of the continued vitality and importance of traditional media? Maybe Last can blog on the topic somewhere--his Old Media article didn't make the case.
