A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prelude to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
--James Madison
For James Madison, access to information and individual freedom went hand in catcher's mitt. Of course, that was more than 200 years ago, when weekly newspapers were the information highway of their day. By the time Madison died in the late 1830s, weeklies had given way to dailies, with nearly 400 of them in the U.S. alone. By 1900, that number had grown to almost 2000. But number-wise, the turn of the century was also a high-water mark, as the number of daily newspapers has since abated to about 1500, with weeklies holding steady at around 7300.
The decline in the number of newspapers--30 years ago, New York had eight major dailies; today, three--along with the inability to consistently attract new readers has newspaper publishers running scared. Some have even gone so far as to say that paper-and-ink newspapers are on the verge of extinction, pointing fingers at a generation reared on MTV noise, "Headline News" newsbytes, and USA Today Perot-like charts. And as you might expect, computer technology is at the eye of the storm.
For many, electronic distribution is the key to newspaper survival. In prototypes developed by the Knight-Ridder Information Design Lab (Boulder, CO), electronic versions of the morning paper are delivered on clipboard-size computers that have flat-panel displays. The start-up display looks like today's hardcopy front page, with familiar headlines, photos, nameplates, and the like. Select a story headline, and you get the complete article, ringed by small ads. Select an ad, and you get a full-sized, detailed version of what's being hawked. Select a photo, and a few seconds of video pop up. In some applications, the tablet might even "read" the news to you (something appreciated by those of us who've witnessed fellow rush-hour commuters reading a newspaper at 55 mph). Getting all that information into the computer involves more than the paperboy flinging a flat-panel display onto your front stoop. Wireless networks will search out subscribers, then automatically download the most up-to-date information to them, assuming they've paid their bill.
In a more sedentary scenario, Tom Pardum, president of US West's multimedia group, envisions electronic newspapers delivered to your television set via fiber-optic networks. "You probably will be able to read in a few years [the newspaper] on your television sets," Pardum says. "The morning newspaper is a small amount of data when converted to digits." US West has recently joined the fiber-optic ranks, undertaking an ambitious $750 million project to rewire its 14-state network.
Computers and newspapers are crossing pens on the editorial front too. In a move prompted more by bottom-line worries than journalistic excellence, small weeklies have been snapping up a $100, buzzword-laden program called "Sportswriter" for covering local sporting events. Prior to a game, the newspaper sends out blank forms for collecting period-by-period scores, game highlights, team records, individual performances, and other relevant data, including quotes from the coach. After the game, a coach completes the form and faxes (or phones) it back to the newspaper, and the data is input into Sportswriter, which automatically spits out an "article." Of course, Sportswriter isn't in a league of its own. In the financial arena, computer-generated stock quotes and similar raw data have been output as "news" for years.
Granted, electronic distribution of information makes possible end-around runs of some of the biggest problems confronting newspapers--the high costs associated with ink, paper, printing presses, unions, paperboys, and the like. In addition to making it easier for existing newspapers to survive, electronic publishing also lowers entry barriers for burgeoning information providers. Forget about printing presses and newsstands--all you need is a PC and modem.
What's missing in all these high-tech remedies for newspaper woes is mention of content--the nature of the information itself. Newspapers that serve the public well aren't measured by the volume of information they provide or by how inexpensively they can produce it. Newspapers are more than shovelware for data. They need to probe and challenge, fuel thought and spark debate. You may not agree with someone's analysis, but if that person gets you thinking, that's enough. Letting coaches (or politicians or marketing specialists, for that matter) choose what will and will not appear in print does nothing to safeguard the public welfare.
As they have over the last few hundred years, newspapers will adapt to changing times, technology, and events. What we can't forget, however, is that great newspapers can be printed on recycled brown paper bags--and that the flashiest multimedia presentation can still be nothing more than electronic junk mail.
editor-in-chief
Copyright © 1994, Dr. Dobb's Journal