Part 2: The future of newspapers

(Continued from previous column, “The fate of print”

But why does the paper as profession have to go the way of the paper as mere material? Indeed, why should the newspaper, the timeless concept that it is, go at all? And why go, of all times, now, in the free-for-all information age, when it would seem precisely needed more than ever, when its passing would leave the public without a familiar institutional voice to listen to in moments of doubt and confusion—moments bound to come oftener and oftener as more and more rogues grab the power, offered indiscriminately by technology, to say what they like to anyone and everyone, regardless of its truthfulness or tastefulness or general worth.

Even in its relative infancy, the Internet—that virtual other-world created by technology to collect and store and dispense information wholesale and unscreened—has already gained notoriety as a platform for launching half-truths, twisted truths, and outright lies to promote selfish and other narrow interests, not to mention sick ones. Thanks, on the other hand, to technology’s initial inadequacies, those Net snipers, allowed in the first place to operate unseen and unknown, invariably escape without a trace.

To be sure, they make up an extreme category of Net habitués. But those who identify themselves, and style themselves as journalists, pose an even greater danger; their openness—barefaced misrepresentation actually—possibly gets across as bold journalism to the masses of uninitiated, as likely the typical news and information customer is.

On its institutional reputation alone, as a practice closely organized and vetted through layer upon layer of checks, newspaper journalism should itself be able to help vet releases from the Net by simply doing what it has all along been doing—inquiring into public issues and reporting on them and analyzing and explaining them. The last two tasks it will have to do more and better to be able not only to counteract Net foistings, but also to get today’s inherent complexities of life sorted.

But first, the newspaper will itself have to get on the Net. There’s simply no escaping it: The Net is the new arena, the new market, the new challenge, the new deal. In the plainest practical terms, the shift from paper to paperless newspaper pre-requires acquiring the technical skills for composing and packaging the newspaper on the screen and refashioning it to make it suitable as well for watching and listening.

Admittedly, it’s easier said than done. But with the substantive component skills long learned and creditably applied and themselves requiring little or no retooling, the shift should be greatly eased. However one gets one’s news, whether by reading or by listening or by watching, is a mere matter of medium. The trick lies with content, the news itself, and with how truthful, relevant, and useful it is to its consumer.

But what are the financial chances of the newspaper on the Net?

Few businesses on the Net (definitely not in our parts), let alone news businesses, are actually making money, although where money is made it is apparently made big. Anyway, by the prevalent wisdom, Net enterprises are best positioned to catch the favors of the fast-arriving future.

A number of us newspapers have in fact taken our positions—begun resettling ourselves—on the Net. But let us not oversimplify. Switching media is akin to removal only in the loosest sense: it entails a far greater expense and effort than packing and moving. Even before the move is made in earnest, its prospects of sustainability should have been determined. As happens, these cannot be determined, only roughly approximated.

The Net, after all, is one boundless marketplace, one that has only begun to be explored, although in its mysteries may precisely lie its allure. If it has been sucking in all manner of enterprises, it’s because to be caught out is thought to be doomed. I think the case can be made indeed for the newspaper. But that doesn’t mean either that doom itself is no prospect for those who have bought in.

We at BusinessWorld have ourselves bought in—we’re on the Net, although only experimentally so far. But, again we do seriously intend to make the full switch in time. We assure you we have good reasons of our own—as reasons go in this tricky affair—but the chief one is out of this world: Our founder and my own predecessor as publisher, the late Raul Locsin, built BusinessWorld on the rock of public trust. So, you see, BusinessWorld just has to go on and on.