It's not the content, it's the medium

[Keyword: onlinejournalism]. Poynter's Steve Outing is encouraging "newspaper folks" to read a piece by Rich Gordon on similarities between the current reaction to new technology, and the introduction of the transistor radio in the 1950s. To quote Outing quoting Gordon: "Newspapers' problem in the Internet age is not, mostly, their content. It is, instead, the package (or device) the content comes in that compares unfavorably to the Internet in the eyes of young people."

You could probably pick any number of other parallels with the introduction of new technologies. The introduction of television news, for instance, reduced the importance of the 'immediacy' of newspaper reporting (as it was always a day late), so the importance (and number) of features and analysis increased. I could go on, but as this is one of the areas of my MPhil, I'll leave it for another time...