Tuesday, March 15, 2005

University of North Carolina Knight Chair in journalism Philip Meyer, author of the book The Vanishing Newspaper, is interviewed by Leonard Witt for his PJNet Today blog. This exchange is worth highlighting:

Witt: "That brings us to the two scenarios you develop in The Vanishing Newspaper. One is to keep squeezing the golden goose, taking all the profits you can, while you can and forgetting about the long-term consequences and the other is to invest in quality journalism whatever its mode of delivery. Which path do you see the large mainstream news media corporations taking?"

Meyer: "The mainstream will harvest the goose. It's the rational thing to do. The decline is happening so slowly that they can make more money in the career span of any present-day manager than they are likely to realize by making high-risk bets on the future. But, as I say in Chapter 2, there will come a magic moment in the life span of every old medium, when it has harvested so much good will that it is vulnerable to competition."

Meyer's comment kind of makes me think that all the hard work of visionaries working within the newspaper industry -- those who are working toward long-term industry prosperity and understand the digital media shift occurring -- will be largely wasted, because at the corporate level the commitment to invest in a future of quality journalism isn't and won't be there in time to "save journalism." What do you think? Is such a pessimistic view warranted?
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