Media predictions

Jon Fine did his annual media predictions and he had an interesting one

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_50/b4112082264180.htm?chan=magazine+channel_opinion


This is already starting to happen. Even in small markets. I know of a biz editor laid off and he turned around and partnered with a local radio guy to start an online site for local news. It has only been recently launched, so you can't gauge local interest, but the guy had a little bit of a following, so it isn't unreasonable to assume some will follow him online.
I just wonder if this is something that you could see more and more of as trusted bylines migrate to their own Web sites.

 

If anybody laid off by a newspaper can make a profitable alt-media site that siphons ads and readers away, all the better. Karma's a bitch.

 

It does make you wonder if the bean counters and pension raiders with no interest in journalism beyond the dividends might be forced to, eventually (even if it's years from now), understand that what we do has value. That there is a difference between someone who is informed and experienced bringing you the news and someone who simply cannot yet meet those qualifications.

 

biz and sports are the best two niche pay sites on the web, well, not counting porn.

sooner or later, and probably sooner, you could collect a group if guys and gals with huge resumes and develop a local or regional site that could be pretty awesome and with the right business plan, could attract some investors as you wait for it pay off.

take sports —with the just the people laid off in Florida, you could put together a pretty good group of writers and blanket the state with coverage.

 

I just checked out his 2008 predictions.

I wouldn't bet on any of his hunches.

 

Katie Couric, GE selling NBC and the newspaper decline slowing toward the end of the year (uh, yeah).
I think journalism will become more decentralized, though I think it's very hard to imagine a niche a "shadow site" could assume. Most big city folks would be better off working for the "alt weekly." The alt-weeklies should ramp up their on-line presence, lose the grunge and tie-die and take on the dailies. There was a fantastic line of analysis on the Web today. Some newspaper wonk stated "the newspaper daily isn't fast enough to compete with the Internet and too short a span to do the work that can set newspapers apart from other media outlets."

 

Well put.