Imagining the Death of Print ... and the Birth of, Well, Something Else

In two previous posts -- click here and here -- I asked some questions about the future of traditional print media and the larger implications for all news reporting.

With the release this past week of Apple's iPad, a whole bunch more questions and proposals came up, and this one and this one (and now this one) sounded a little familiar.

But, enough about me, what do you think about ... news on paper?

Using Twitter, Facebook and email, I put out a question: If you knew that news would no longer be available on paper in, say, one year, what would you do?

The respondees include folks not working in media but also quite a few who do (obviously, the one constant is they all use computers to one degree or another, as that's how I asked them the question).

You will draw your own conclusions once you read these replies -- and I'd love to hear from you in the comments -- but my immediate takeaway from this is that few folks working outside of media really comprehend that online news is either largely a product of, or dependent on, content from traditional print and wire sources (and while those working in media know this, many just read stuff online for free and hope for the best).

Even fewer have internalized the fact that their enjoyment of free news is heavily dependent on revenue from those "backward" folks who still buy paper news and magazines and thereby contribute to the calculation of advertising revenues, which are still greater in print than online.

It's like standing on the shoulders of giants and thinking you're just really tall.

But human nature is what it is. As infomercial king Kevin Harrington said on my other blog, "I'm a consumer, and I want what I want."

That still leaves the problem of how to pay to give consumers what they want in the way they want it. The issue is being studied widely, including by the Newseum, and by the makers of this upcoming documentary film (who had an awesome trailer on YouTube, which they have inexplicably removed).

As always, the people have the final word, as they do here.

Here are the responses from Twitter:

* It's strange, but even though I started my journalism career writing for newspapers, I haven't read one regularly in maybe a decade.

* What are newspapers going to do if we no longer read them in print?

* Honestly, now that you've got me thinking about it, I realize that I so rarely look at news on paper, I wouldn't much notice.

* Tweet one: Does that assume evything now in print wd be online? Or that print sub & ad revenue wd disappear, taking many outlets with them?
Tweet two: Yr tweeps, I suspect, are assuming that cd still read evything they can today online, for free. Wd that it were so.
Tweet three, responding to my tweet that the assumption was that it would be online (don't know about the "free" bit, though): Then I wd be grateful for the miracle that enabled that to happen. Tho sad for my mom, who has no computer & lives in 3G dead zone.

(Above from a working magazine journalist)

* Start my own newspaper or magazine.

* If news was not available on paper tomorrow it wouldn't affect me at all. I all my news on the web. Sunday newspaper = coupons.

* I would not care. The only thing I would miss is the NY Times crossword puzzle. All my news comes online or TV.

* Nothing. I rarely read the newspaper now.

* What's paper???

(Above from a wiseacre reality-TV star)

* I barely read the paper as it is. So not much.

* Hoard print like a mother f---er.

* Probably nothing. It's been forever since I regularly read the news in hard copy.

* Subscribe to Yahoo news feed online -- not a big deal.

* I'd worry about the potential job losses, but it wouldn't really impact me, personally.

* It would not bother me. I get my news online already, when I want to read the news. Too much misery nowadays.

* TV, online, vids, etc., to get news if newsprint ws ... too sad to even contemplate.

* Hey, Kate, it's already happening at my library. We get more & more journals online. I honestly dunno what I'd do re: news.

* I'd be devastated. I love reading the paper every morning.

From Facebook ...

* Read it online or on my Blackberry, like I do now, but still lament the lost of the tactile-ness of paper.

* Not even notice.

(Above from a working online journalist)

* Have (my fiance) continue to watch CNN and keep me posted.

From email ...

* The computer is the devil.

* Since I generally read newspapers and magazines for the tactile experience and ease of reading (especially longer, in-depth articles and books), I would be disappointed, but would generally adapt to reading news online at specific news sites. I also might consider purchasing a Kindle, Apple iPad or something similar.

* I wouldn't be happy. While I know that news in the paper in the morning is already out-of-date by the time I read it with my dinner in the evening, still, that's when I have the time to read it. I get NY Times updates throughout the day, when something important (and sometimes not-so-important) happens, and that's good enough. And I do check the local TV-station websites for weather, etc.

* Nothing. I don't read it in print anymore, anyway.

(Above from a working newspaper journalist and blogger)

* MYOP (Make Your Own Paper) Subscribe to a daily customized online digest of everything I actually care about. Local news and style pieces from the (Washington) Post; community doings in the Gazette; think pieces from the (New York) Times and the (Wall Street) Journal; entertainment news from Cuppa, and woo-hoo! No more sports! Add in some weekly features from the Economist and The Week, and I'm a happy woman. That, or just keep listening to NPR.

* I would do my best to find an online news provider who actually PAID reporters to report the news. A news provider with an editorial staff -- meaning not only copy editing but content editing. I want lackeys reporting to bosses! I also would like to PAY for this service, because otherwise I don't see how these editors and reporters are being paid. I'd most likely access this news from my computer, because that's where I am all the time.
I still haven't found an ereader that has caught my fancy. I guess I'd start looking for one I could read while lying on my back on my couch or in my EZ Boy chair. This laptop thing requires that I sit bolt upright like a student or, like, say, a television writer writing.
I want my news to come from the pros. Even the pros I hate and rail against. I've had it with the amateurs.

(Above from a working TV writer/producer)

* What, you mean people still read print?

* I'll absolutely have no problem with that. I'd do nothing special except for, maybe, sorting out more carefully where to go online for the latest info.

* I'd get pretty annoyed, as I still like my weekend newspapers (no need to boot up, no terrible consequences if I spill coffee on it). But I'd continue watching the evening news on TV, on a local station. I don't get much news on the computer. If I am online, I am busy doing something else besides perusing the news.

* I'd be sad, since I'm a tactile person, and newspapers are kind of comforting. However, if we decided to spare the trees, I'd read the news online. Although, sitting on the porch on a summer Sunday with a cup of coffee and a netbook somehow wouldn't have the same charm.

A World of News in Your Hand -- Cheap

With the Consumer Electronics Show underway in Las Vegas as I type, e-readers are the hot topic. With Amazon's Kindle (left) and Barnes & Noble's Nook having generated most of the buzz pre-show (they're primarily designed for reading books, natch), the new talk is about larger e-readers, ones that can show color, etc.

In other words, these are e-readers tailored for the reading of newspaper- and magazine-style content, which traditionally is a much bigger page than books, with color photos, pie charts, graphs and so on. Some even have touchscreens or let you take notes.

I don't have an e-reader, mostly because they're pretty pricey, and I have quite enough pricey electronics with short shelf lives in my possession right now. But, I might be persuaded ...

Back at the beginning of this blog early last summer, I explored the future of news, asking questions about what might become of the traditional news delivery systems (inky newsprint, in particular) and why people paid for them.

So here's the question I've been asking myself about e-readers -- why would I pay $250 and up (and up) for a device that still made me pay for additional content? I'm cheap to be sure, but as of yet, the cost-benefit ratio just hasn't worked for me.

But, what if I could get an e-reader for less than $100 (I like $50, but again, cheap), if I also agreed to an extended subscription for a local newspaper? It's much like the deep discount offered on mobile handsets in exchange for an extended service contract with the mobile provider.

Perhaps the deal could be sweetened with access to the newspapers' sister publications around the country (for example, I work for Tribune Company, and we have several newspapers, along with some specialty publications). Perhaps deals could be struck with magazine publishers to bundle in a few of those at a bargain price. And there could even be original content produced just for e-reader subscribers.

I would then have an e-reader on the cheap, with a ready-made cornucopia of content. Of course, I could download books and whatever else I wanted to the device. Having a device that could only display the subscription content that was part of the original deal would be, well, stupid.

And of course, I would want the ability to see all the cool multimedia content offered on news sites.

You may say, "But Accidental Futurist, I can read all this stuff on my laptop, or on my netbook or on my mobile device!"

Yes, you may, provided the newspapers keep giving their stuff away for free on the Internet.

But even if they do, one upside of e-readers is that they make reading print on a screen as easy on the eyes as reading on paper. And once you've loaded the content into them, you don't need an Internet connection to keep reading. And you won't go blind from peering at tiny screens.

And all this might be worth it, if they were CHEAP enough. And it just might allow e-readers to have a longstanding niche in the market (if you believe some reports, that's far from assured).

Would you buy fancy mobile phones and PDAs if you had to pay the full list price? Look at the list prices once in a while and compare to what you paid. You may faint.

Look, I'm no genius. This idea is already being floated out in the world. My question to you is -- would you bite? And if not, why not?

BTW, when I floated this idea on Twitter, somebody told me that she's just old-fashioned and prefers the feel of a newspaper or a book. Fair enough -- if you believe that both of these things will survive in their current form.

Good luck with that.

UPDATE: E-readers beware, it looks like Steve Jobs' new Apple Tablet is aiming to be one-stop-shopping for print AND TV. Click here for more.

UPDATE: This is why I said a discounted ereader, not a free one.

Booms, Busts and Stocking Your Toolbox

Up until a little over a year ago, we were riding high. Home values going up and up, jobs aplenty. Loans were easy to come by; money could be made in the stock market. It seemed the ride would never end.

This was a problem of managing abundance, and on the whole, we did a piss-poor job of it.

Managing abundance is perhaps more difficult than managing scarcity. After all, the more abundance, the more choices; the more choices, the more decisions to be made; the more decisions to be made, the more chances for confusion and mistakes.

Imagine you're faced with two tables.

One has a tossed salad, turkey, some mashed potatoes, peas and a pumpkin pie. What will be your first course, your main course, your dessert? Easy to figure out, eh?

Now imagine a table with a lasagna, a prime rib, some shrimp, a platter of hors d'oeuvres, asparagus, sweet potatoes, antipasto, rack of lamb, scalloped potatoes, Polish sausage with apples and sauerkraut, ambrosia, apple pie, chocolate cake, banana pudding and tiramisu.

Hmmm, this is more complicated. Unless you want to burst, you probably can't eat it all. So even if you like and want it all -- and even if you have permission to eat as much as you want -- you're going to have to pick and choose, leaving some dishes untouched. Probably later in the evening, you might wish you'd gone for the prime rib instead of the lamb, or the banana pudding over the apple pie.

This sort of cogitating and regret probably wouldn't happen with the first table, in which the choices were clear. There was less variety, and maybe you don't like peas, but it amounted to a whole lot less stress as well (and possibly less indigestion and extra pounds down the line).

It reminds me of the scene in "Moscow on the Hudson," where Soviet emigrant Robin Williams is confronted with a dizzying array of coffee choices in a supermarket and collapses from sensory overload.

Most of us didn't manage our abundance very well. We spent what we could afford and then spent some more, certain that something would happen to make it all right. We overextended and overreached, overcome with irrational optimism that this boom, unlike any other boom before it in the history of mankind, would never end.

Of course, it did end, and those people who began their working lives in the boom and had never known anything else found themselves in a cold new world without a warm coat or a road map. But, those impacted by the tech bust of 2000 or the stock crash of the late '80s or the stagflation and privation of mid-to-late '70s and early '80s -- or those who lived through the Big One, the Great Depression -- at least had a toolbox of coping skills they could call upon.

Now it's time to manage scarcity. There is great joy to be found in detaching from excessive materialism, learning how to survive with less, appreciating more what you have, calling upon your resourcefulness to get by.

There are also great lessons, especially the one about booms never lasting forever -- and busts never lasting forever.

It also sucks.

For those, like me, who remember bad old times, there's that handy toolbox and the knowledge that this too shall pass. For those of you for whom this is your first bad old time, you have my sympathy, but you do have the opportunity now to stock your own toolbox.

Maybe, when the abundance comes back -- and it will -- we won't screw it up so badly. OK, some of us will, but every boom is built, at least in part, on the hard lessons of the bust. Yeah, the house fell down around our ears, but as long as the foundation is sound, it can always be rebuilt.

Now, if we can just keep the government from jackhammering the foundation ...

Twitter, Facebook, Etc. -- Talkin' About a Revolution

What separates humans from other animals? You could say the opposable thumb, bipedal locomotion or a highly developed cerebral cortex.

Yeah, I'll give you all those, but think about this. What just happened? I wrote. You read. You heard my words in your head and, with any luck, comprehended my meaning.

We communicated, because that's what people do. Unless they're in solitary confinement or have some other serious issue, it's what people do every day. We can't help ourselves. We love to share information, whether in words or pictures or both.

Any bit of new technology that helps people do this is bound to be a smash, whether it's using charcoal to draw the elk you just ate on the cave wall or using Twitter to send a picture of your lunch to millions of strangers.

You may ask, what is Twitter? For that matter, what is Facebook? What is MySpace? What is social media?

If you do ask, just click on the links above, do a little reading, and come back.

I'm not here to give a history of social media, but to share a few recent experiences with it that just blew my mind.

Now, I'm a slow adopter of new things. I'm not a Luddite by any means, nor am I a gadget freak. I'm all about the utility. As soon as I can figure out how to make something work for me -- and make it worth the effort I need to put into it -- I'll jump in.

As a journalist and a blogger, I decided last year that it was time to dive into Twitter, and this year I also launched on Facebook. For a while, both of them were entertaining and a novelty, then things began to happen that opened my eyes to the possibilities of these new communication and networking mediums.

In January, I sat in a hotel ballroom participating in press panels during the biannual Television Critics Association press tour (that's the day job). I and several other reporters in the room provided a continuous stream of tweets (the word for Twitter messages) that offered anyone following them a word picture of what was happening in the press conference, including funny moments and celebrity quotes.

It allowed non-journalists to feel like they were there, without trying to actually go there and being taken away by burly security guards.

The next month, I livetweeted a car chase in Los Angeles, following the story live, on TV and online until the end, and turned it into a blog post.

These are just small examples of how Twitter can be used to cover events of any kind, whether personal or news. Various Twitter tools -- such as TinyURL and TwitPic -- allow users to share not only 140 characters of text, but links, photos and video.

In essence, you can become your own little news feed (and there are those also on Twitter, and when they say @BreakingNews, they mean it).

Whether you're sharing your travel travails on an airline odyssey, lounging by the beach in Cabo, attending a Jonas Brothers concert or running for your life in the middle of a revolution on the streets of Tehran, Twitter lets people share the smallest and largest events possible.

And, aside from the cost of a computer or cellphone and Internet access, it's free.

Without Twitter and Facebook, it's likely that very little of the recent post-electoral unrest and violence in Iran -- especially the shooting of a young woman, captured on video -- would have become known to the outside world.

Because Twitter, Facebook and other social media operate from cellphones as well as computers, they're easily updated -- even in motion -- and difficult to shut down.

And because the news is coming from anybody and everybody, rather than through the journalism pipeline, it's disseminated in real time.

On the day infomercial king Billy Mays died, I learned it from his son, or, as he's known on Twitter, @youngbillymays, who tweeted that his dad had not woken up that morning. I shot an email to the publicist for Mays' Discovery Channel show "Pitchmen," and my blog post was well underway before the news appeared my TV.

Last Friday, former vice-presidential candidate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin announced she was resigning the office later this month, catching the journalistic world by surprise. While anything Palin says or does is big news, she's not all that fond of the news media in return.

So, rather than just having her comments filtered out through reporters and spokespeople, Palin has used her Twitter and Facebook accounts to communicate directly to her supporters -- and therefore to the world at large.

During the election last fall, now-President Obama used social media extensively to communicate with voters and volunteers and build his campaign organization.

These days, with practically every member of Congress -- including Obama's septuagenarian opponent, Sen. John McCain -- Twittering about their political adventures, the idea the politicians need news media alone to get their message out seems well and truly dead.

And lest you think that journalists are entirely left behind in this, several are making extensive use of social media, whether it's ABC News senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper tweeting back photos from Moscow as he heads there ahead of the president, or Fox News Channel religion correspondent Father Jonathan Morris using Facebook to discuss his latest fish-out-of-water appearance with the merry pranksters of FNC's latenight comedy-news show "RedEye W/Greg Gutfeld."

On the flip side, because it doesn't go through journalistic filters, whatever news appears through social media is raw and unverified. The potential for propaganda, or even outright hoaxes, is huge. Eyewitness and firsthand accounts are compelling, but as any prosecuting attorney will tell you, hard facts often trump a tale, no matter how well-told.

Social media is still in its infancy, and new technology, acquisitions and mergers -- Twitter seems to be in the news every other day as being courted by one buyer or another -- may drastically and quickly change the landscape.

Even with all this technology, social media is about human social interaction, and a few basic rules still apply:

Nobody likes a liar or a gossip (but some folks may pay them well if they have gossip about a celebrity).

A little courtesy goes a long way.

Think long and hard before you post anything you wouldn't want your mom, your boss, your significant other or your lawyer to read.

Also think long and hard before allowing the world to know that you can't spell and have poor grammar. Better not to write and be thought a functional illiterate than to put hands to keyboard and remove all doubt.

Don't be boring. You'd think, with Twitter's 140-character limit, that wouldn't be possible, but trust me, it is.

Lastly, if you're one of those people whining that all this social media claptrap is just so must time-wasting stuff, nonsense and poppycock, be aware that someone has probably said that about every advance in communication in human history, from the charcoal to the printing press to the telephone.

Not everyone will have a need for these tools, but whether you use them or not, they will change the world you live in. And, the less you complain about how stupid they are, the less you'll have to take back if you start using them.

Dressing Like a Grown-Up (Especially if You Are One)

Right up front, don't think I'm advocating for the return of the bustle. Believe me, that is not my intention.

But take a moment and gaze at the drawing of these lovely Victorian ladies. What can you tell about them from what they are wearing?

First of all, you can see that these are adult women, not children or younger adolescents. You know that because, while little girls of the era wore clothes that were similar to what women wore, they definitely weren't miniatures of mature outfits (nor did women wear larger versions of clothing intended for teens and younger).

You can also tell that they're going somewhere special -- which is to say, out of the house.

In ye olden days, adults heading into public put a bit of effort into their clothes if at all possible.

Even the poorest women would trot out a ribbon or a bit of lace to show that they knew that they weren't at home scrubbing the kitchen floor but indeed in the world among their fellow citizens.

Men would put on a coat, perhaps a hat, and shine their shoes.

Looking just at how a person was dressed, you could make a reasonable guess about their age and whether they were going to church or a shop, or merely stepping out the back door to feed the chickens.

It was a question of respect, not just self-respect but respect for others and for the situation, place and circumstance.

These sorts of distinctions are much more difficult today, when an average middle-class adult might wear the same T-shirt, shorts and sneakers to church, to the mall, to the doctor's office, to the local park or to clean out the garage (or, in the case of some very indulgent employers, to work).

We all want to be comfortable. I'm sure these ladies loved comfort as well. No doubt, given the opportunity, a goodly number of them would have tossed out the crinolines, corsets and bonnets in favor of a tank top, cut-offs and flip-flops.

But I can't help but feel that more is lost in that than just a few yards of excess fabric.

I went to tea Sunday with some female friends, and we all wore skirts. Had we been outdoors, we might have donned hats as well. In the past, I've been to tea outings where the full kit was deployed, from cute shoes to a fancy chapeau and everything in between.

Gosh, it's nice to do that. I remember how special we felt, how we all appreciated each other's efforts to dress up the occasion. We weren't at a ball game or making a trip to the dump, and anyone looking at us would have been left in no doubt of that.

Like many people, I've gotten a little lax. I might throw on athletic wear and sneakers for church if I plan to go for a walk afterward, or be tempted to go to the store in my baggy pants and T-shirt just because it seems silly to dress up a bit just to get a quart of milk at Trader Joe's (OK, not that I ever leave Trader Joe's with just a quart of milk, but you get the point).

I actually saw a woman arrive at my local TJ's not more than a couple of months ago, decked out in an elderly T-shirt, leopard-print pajama pants and Ugg boots. I kid you not. And she was well over 18, and it was mid-afternoon.

To be perfectly honest, I didn't look a whole lot better (but at least I didn't have pajama pants on. Not quite, anyway).

A couple of days ago, after hearing about fortysomething Tony Hawk skateboarding through the halls of the White House -- the people's house -- and Twittering about eating Frosted Flakes there, I decided enough was enough.

At least he was wearing a suit (with sneakers), but even so, I fear we've lost any sense of what's appropriate, whether it's about what to wear or where to do things.

If a 41-year-old man doesn't respect the White House enough to act like an adult in it, then I'm not sure there's any place he wouldn't think catching a quick skateboard ride isn't perfectly appropriate.

Why not the National Cathedral? Great big shiny floor there. How about the Lincoln Memorial? Just grab the old guy's hand and whip yourself around. Bet you could could do a nice McTwist on the handicap ramps at the Smithsonian.

And since adults set the tone for kids, adults who refuse to stop dressing or acting like kids aren't doing the younger generation any favors.

It's still a tough, dangerous, competitive world out there, and the only way overgrown adolescents survive in it is because other people have decided to to put away childish things and become grown-ups.

If a 20-year-old soldier can throw on a uniform and pounds of gear every day to defend my freedom, the least I can do, safe and secure at home, is try every day to not let down my end of the adult bargain.

Also, looking to the future, with the job market shrinking and competition becoming more intense in a world where many workers are essentially independent contractors, the price of perpetual casual Friday could be high indeed.

So this Sunday, no sneakers in church. There might even a be a skirt. Heavens, who knows where this will lead...

Click here for "RedEye" host Greg Gutfeld's impassioned response to Hawk's most excellent White House adventure...

Here for the New York Times article about a book called "The Death of the Grown-Up"...

Here for About.com's guide to dressing business casual...

Here for Virginia Tech's career-wear advice for its grads...

Here for a guide on professional dress for women...

Here for the same on the male side...

And here for those who might actually want to dress Victorian and go to tea, with advice from the always appropriately dressed friend who provided the illustration above.

I Fought the (Natural) Law, and the Law Won

When I was younger, I was a serial killer of plants. Much innocent foliage gave its life until I got bright enough to acknowledge that I didn't know what I was doing.

So I bought some books, watched "The Victory Garden" (these were the days before HGTV) and talked to staff at garden centers.

As a result, my gardens when I lived in Northern New York State were healthy and flourishing, partly because I picked the right plants for the planting zone in which I was living.

Luckily for me, this zone matched my aesthetic, which runs to rambling, overgrown English country garden.

Then I moved to Los Angeles and resumed my murderous ways.

Here, I don't have a garden, I have a balcony. It faces southwest and so, even a few miles inland, gets whipped by the wind off the Pacific Ocean. It also alternately gets baked by the midday and afternoon sun, or fogged in by the marine layer (sometimes both in the same day).

It can be pretty chilly out there or stiflingly hot. And it's never, ever really winter, and it can be summer at any time of the year.

Over the next few years, Mother Nature resolutely resisted my every attempt to recreate the English country garden look, baking or rotting a succession of violas, Johnny-jump-ups, strawberry plants, double impatiens, miniature roses (OK, the squirrels eating the buds didn't help either), tuberous begonias, lamiums, sweet woodruff and other plants too numerous to mention and too painful to remember.

I also went through several varieties of rosemary and lavender, which usually grow well in Los Angeles, just not on my balcony. Too hot, too damp, too something.

Of course, other Mediterranean herbs did very well -- especially basil -- as did any kind of succulent, but they didn't fit my vision, so I didn't want to plant them. Oh, no, I preferred the ones that required daily watering, loads of insecticide and constant moving around the space to get optimal light conditions or to shield from the wind.

After dumping one last load of my expired horticultural experiments, I finally gave in.

Mother Nature won, but then she always does. You see, I had forgotten an elemental lesson.

You'd better learn to work with Mother Nature, because she has absolutely no intention of working with you.

Now, you can plant orange trees in a heated Adirondack greenhouse and circumvent the winter, or dump uncounted thousands of gallons of water and chemicals on a Los Angeles lawn to maintain lush green grass in a desert, but trying to push Nature's boundaries is inevitably extremely difficult and extremely expensive.

Better, perhaps, to plant a Macintosh apple tree outdoors in the mountain valley, or landscape with native plants in Southern California.

Or, in my case, better to plant those herbs, succulents, bougainvillea (pictured above) and scented geraniums that thrive in the environment I have provided for them. After all, I chose to live in a desert, in an urban apartment, not in a thatched cottage in the Cotswolds or a Saratoga Springs carriage house.

Rather than thumbing my nose at Nature and slaughtering plants with abandon, I have taken responsibility for my decisions and yielded to her greater wisdom.

Yeah, I still have a lavender, even though I'm quite convinced it will only get so big in a pot and then die. Or, maybe I'll give it then to a friend with a yard, where it can go in the ground and live a long and beautiful life.

The lesson in this is that no matter how many times we tell ourselves that we can control Nature, that we can tweak her systems and bend her rules, she will always have the last word.

And by the way, since I stopped trying to turn a patch of concrete in Southern California into a vision out of Beatrix Potter, I've saved a lot of money, time and effort, and my garden, while not my original vision, is a vision nonetheless, one I never tire of seeing.

For one of my favorite takes on the environment, visit www.mikeroweWORKS.com, created by Mike Rowe, the host of Discovery Channel's "Dirty Jobs." I'd love it if you perused the whole site, but if you're in a hurry to get out and weed your own patch, just click here. Rowe's an advocate of "Brown Before Green," of which I am an eager acolyte.

As Mike says, "Like my friends who espouse all things Green, I want to live on a healthy planet. I really do. But I’m tired of the guilt. I’m suspicious of the manipulation. And I’m weary of being lectured by people who seem to care more about the planet than the people on it. Hollywood and Washington have shaped the issue, and now, all things Eco-friendly are up for sale. Well, that’s fine. But when it comes to jobs, the people who make a difference aren’t covered in green. They’re covered in Brown - dirt, mud, grime, grease, or maybe something worse. I’m no expert, but if we’re going to save the Earth, the color of Dirt makes a heck of a lot more sense than the color of Envy. The way I see it, if we really want to get clean and green, we’re gonna have to get down with brown. In other words, we’re going to have to get our hands dirty."

Check the site, there's lots more where that came from. Or you can click here to see where Mike and I discussed the topic for my other blog, Hot Cuppa TV.

Like Mike, when someone tells me how to save the Earth, I'd like to know they spend time with a bit of it under their fingernails.

Inky Newsprint and the Future of News in an A la Carte World

As a journalist (that's the day job), every day I hear the question, "What is the future of newspapers?"

My answer is, "There isn't one, if you expect the industry to look like it does today."

One can wander far into the weeds of monetizing online content, micropayments, content cannibalization, etc., etc. Far cleverer folks than me, and those that have actually worked in a major-newspaper newsroom (I've always been either a freelancer or a wire-service staff writer), have tackled these questions and no doubt do a better job of discussing these topics than I can.

Some recent sources for views on the subject are linked at the bottom of this post. But, as a newspaper outsider who is also a journalistic insider -- and vested in the outcome of this debate -- I'll default to what I do best, ask questions.

I'll offer a couple of answers for each, but you may have a very different perspective, and I hope you'll share it with me. Here we go...

What is a newspaper?

Literally speaking, it's a pile of inky newsprint, a delivery system for information, advertising and photographs. But when people say "newspaper," they usually refer to what I call the newsgathering infrastructure, the people and technology that produce what winds up on the inky newsprint.

For the record -- not fond of inky newsprint. I went more than a decade without a newspaper subscription, because I just detest dealing with inky newsprint. I get a Sunday paper now...for the coupons. The inky newsprint generally gets tossed.

But, I consume vast quantities of news, both on screen and online, much of it newspaper and magazine content. That's partly because it's free but mostly because it's convenient. If I had to pay, I probably would, but hardly anybody asks me to. Which leads me to another question...

Why do people buy a newspaper?

A few may get it for the paper itself, to wrap their fish or put at the bottom of a birdcage (it's also great for cleaning glass and absorbing odors in the fridge), and others enjoy the physical sensation of reading the paper, but mostly it's to get the information, ads and photos on the inky newsprint. The content, as always, is king.

In the past, buying the paper was the only way to get the content. And, you had to buy the whole paper to get the content that mattered most to you, which might be only the sports section, the stock quotes, the comics or the obituaries. Newspapers have always done surveys to determine which section of the paper people liked more and adjusted accordingly, but you still were stuck with an all-or-nothing choice.

Those days are gone. With the Internet and specialized cable channels, we can now seek out our favorite content and ignore the rest (whether that's good or bad in itself is a conversation for another day).

In restaurant terms, you could say we've gone from a prix fixe to an a la carte world. I don't have to get roast chicken, rosemary new potatoes and maple-glazed carrots just because that's what the chef or the restaurant owner put on the menu that day, if what I really want is roast chicken, sweet-potato puree and green beans almondine. Or maybe I just want the chicken, or the beans, or the puree. Or maybe I want pork chops or eggplant parmesan.

Or, I want dessert first (which I always do).

A similar problem faces TV networks, but since viewers can change channels, there's always been an element of a la carte viewing there. With DVDs, DVRs, On Demand and the Internet, viewers have even more freedom now, but it's never been the case that you had to watch all of ABC to just see "Desperate Housewives," and the advertising rates for TV networks have never been based on an all-or-nothing model.

Newspapers, on the other hand, have been doing just that. You've never been able to buy just the sports section, or just the obits, and the popular sections of the paper have often carried the financial freight for the more specialized or estoeric sections.

Yeah, that's going away.

Just because people have never had a choice doesn't mean they wouldn't jump on the chance to have one if only they could. Digital distribution makes it very hard, if not soon impossible, to herd people to content through a few carefully controlled gateways (where you pay the price of admission, of course). That's great for the unfettered dissemination of information but lousy for figuring out advertising rates or viable subscription models.

People want only what they want, when they want it, the way they want it, and on the Internet, unless it's merchandise or porn, they usually don't want to pay for it.

But let's face facts, we're not going to get professional journalism or professionally produced entertainment unless we pay professional salaries to the professionals that make it. Without a viable way to monetize digital distribution, we're looking down the barrel of a future dominated by blogs about other blogs and user-generated YouTube videos.

That stuff's fine as as an appetizer or a side dish, but the whole meal?

So, how to get people to want to pay admission to go through a gateway to get content?

Let's go back to the restaurant analogy. There are prix fixe restaurants, and people go to them and often pay top dollar. Why, when they could go to an a la carte restaurant and pick every element of their meal?

It's because they trust the chef to make good choices about what goes on the plate, perhaps better and more inventive and tastier choices than they might have made on their own. They're paying not only for the food, but for the expertise that went into choosing, preparing and combining the dishes.

And the chef won't give it to them any other way. No substitutions allowed.

If diners couldn't live with that, they'd go to a family buffet place or a fast-food joint or cook for themselves at home. Many do that, but not everyone, and even for those that do, maybe not every meal. And, as a side note, those who choose to trust the chef are often part of an upscale, highly desirable demographic.

And, the chef WON'T GIVE IT TO THEM ANY OTHER WAY. And, YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR IT.

Obviously, the restaurant thinks the combined cost of the ingredients and the preparation, and what they're paying for the chef's expertise and technique, means the food produced has value. Things that have value are generally not given away -- or if they are, only as a teaser to get you to pay up later.

It's hard to imagine Gordon Ramsay maintaining his reputation if you could walk into any of his restaurants off the street and demand a beef Wellington and a risotto for nothing but the lint in your pocket.

But, he might put a kiosk out front that gives you a sample bite, if the restaurant's on a highly trafficked street, but you certainly won't get the whole yummy meal unless you fork over some cash.

And if you were getting Gordon Ramsay's food for free, wouldn't you start to wonder how he pays for that? Is that really beef in that pastry? Doesn't bear thinking about.

One wonders then, why those that operate the newsgathering infrastructures think what they offer has no value and should be tossed out there for free. But now I'm getting into monetizing digital distribution and way out of my area of expertise. Back to the questions.

Again, what is the future for newspapers?

Dismal. But the future of news, very bright -- maybe just not primarily provided on those piles of inky newsprint (which, I know, is very bad news for those who work the printing presses and drive the delivery trucks, not to mention the kid on his bike with a paper route).

To prepare for this, journalists are going to have to learn some new skills, not just writing and talking, but also editing audio and video.

The survival of the mainstream news media also comes down to a question of trust. If you trust a chef to give you a quality meal, you'll pay the going rate and be a loyal customer. If you think he or she is sloppy, uses inferior ingredients or, because of an innate preference for garlic, insists on sneaking it into everything, including the creme brulee, you'll move on.

Just at the time they need their readers' trust and loyalty the most, too many newspapers have chosen to serve their own opinions and interests instead of the truth. Last year, a reporter actually said to me, "Truth has a liberal bias." He was serious.

I doubt that the Founding Fathers, when they decreed in the First Amendment to the Constitution that we should have a free press, had that in mind. But it is a free press, which means people can also let their biases run free, and the market will sort it out. Looking around, I suspect the market may have spoken.

Lastly...

What can we do?

As a journalist, I can try to do my best, day by day, and hope people at the higher pay grades figure out a way to keep the lights on. It's up to everyone else in the newsgathering infrastructure to make sure they're providing a service worth paying for, a balanced meal of news, information, images and interactive content that engages users and readers and makes them feel like they're getting good value for their time and dollar.

Oh, and serving the truth instead of themselves -- that's also helpful.

But it's you, as readers (or users or viewers), that have the final say.

Will you support good journalism where you find it?

What's it worth to you to know more about your world and the people making decisions that affect your life?

Will you just consume the results of others' efforts without ever paying the check?

If the answers to the above are no, nothing and yes, and the ad-supported model for online news doesn't pan out, we might as well just turn out the lights now, lock the doors and flip the sign over to "Closed."

Maybe one of the folks below will come up with a solution...

Eat, Sleep, Publish -- Thoughts on the future of publishing.

Content Bridges, linking old and new media.

A cheeky piece, posted just yesterday, from Boing Boing.

Jack Myers, from the Huffington Post last year.

A more hopeful vision, from the U.K., about a month ago.

From late May, a Greek news editor ponders the paperless future of news.

And some video of Charlie Rose, discussing the subject with a panel of news heavyweights, from February.

And finally, where I learn everything about what's happening in my home city of Los Angeles: Curbed LA and the L.A. Now blog from the Los Angeles Times (which has a pretty colorful past).

UPDATE: This former editor of the former Rocky Mountain News examines the results of a meeting of newspaper honchos, and he's seriously bummed; this journalism instructor isn't too jazzed about the value of journalism; Time Magazine's media critic plots out worst-case scenarios; and "Reflections of a Newsosaur does the same, relating it to the troubles of the auto industry, which I discussed here.

There's more out there, but you get the idea.