Roy Peter Clark has an excellent piece on the Poynter Institute’s site about another way of looking at the future of the newspaper, whom it will serve and what kind of an approach it will take.
There’s an idea about the future of newspapers floating over the land and it goes like this: As more and more breaking news and information drives readers to Web sites, the newspaper of the future will have to change. It will become more up-scale in its audience and advertising, more selective, more focused, a little brainier. In some expressions, it will seem more literary, more creative, more visually exciting. Liberated of the need to break so much news, it will provide readers with analysis, context and meaning.
Think of NPR on paper.
Who will work for such a newspaper? It will have to be reporters, writers and editors who are comfortable with ideas, with theories, with abstractions. Pretty tough stuff for folks whose philosophy can be summed up: “Get the name of the dog!”
[Continue reading Brainier Journalism]
It’s something to consider while you are studying journalism. It’s also a big reason why some employers value a traditional liberal arts education over a more tightly specialized J-school degree.
