The closing of the shop

"We hit it off immediately and made a point of trying to get together when we coincided in Paris, Buenos Aires, or Chicago. We talked about the news, technology, culture, and politics for hours. Halfway through our conversation during that lunch, he said something I will never forget: "You know, Pablo, one day we might witness the closing of the shop. Somebody will turn off the lights and voilá!""

"I found myself returning to Jean-François' premonition time and again while preparing for class, as well as during class discussions. What if we are witnessing the "closing of the shop"? What if this is the beginning of the end for the news media as we have known it for more than one hundred years? What if there is no audience and revenue model to sustain the news media as sizable and thriving sector of society and the economy?"

"Yes, we will always have news, since most people will want to know about what interests them. Yes, we will always have journalists, since some people will be able to make a living telling those stories. Yes, we will always have some news organizations capable of being economically successful. But there are trends that suggest that there might not be enough market demand to keep the news media alive as both an institutionalized part of the information ecosystem and a viable sector of the economy."

A 2007 visit to Jean-François Fogel in Paris included a remark that one day someone might "turn off the lights" and witness the news industry's closure. Subsequent teaching of a Sociology of Online News course prompted repeated consideration of whether the news media are entering an irreversible decline. News, journalists, and some profitable organizations are expected to persist, but overall market demand may be insufficient to maintain news media as an institutionalized information ecosystem and a viable economic sector. Employment within news organizations declined staggeringly in the early twenty-first century, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, indicating financial and structural pressures.

Read at Nieman Lab