Time to Act

Don't miss David Carr's article in the New York Times, All of Us, The Arbiters Of News. It's worth a read as a reminder that we've known that media organization in the U.S. and around the world need to change, and that we still face amazing resistance to that change.

He also notes the opening day of the Olympic games as an example of how new media can help old media. Apparently, according to the article, NBC was doing its best to stop leaks of the opening ceremony. But those leaks served to increase interest in the ceremony which resulted in good numbers for NBC in the evening.

I remember reports in the early days of the Web that said initial fears from bookstores that the Web would eat their sales, were wrong. That the Web had increased interest in books in general and consequently increased bookstore sales. It would be interesting to know if this is still true. But this report about NBC's Olympic coverage reminded me of that story.

Less happy is Carr's mention of The Philadelphia Inquirer's plan to hold any significant content off the Web until it has appeared in the paper. Carr says "If the future of our business is online, then why set up a firewall, delaying the best content to protect a legacy product?"

It is sad that after ten years anyone thinks this is still an issue for discussion. And it's so much more depressing that a decade after this discussion began serious news organizations are still reaching the wrong conclusion.