The Birth of the Internet Press

Clay Shirky on the death of the newspaper:

The newspaper people often note that newspapers benefit society as a whole. This is true, but irrelevant to the problem at hand; “You’re gonna miss us when we’re gone!” has never been much of a business model. So who covers all that news if some significant fraction of the currently employed newspaper people lose their jobs?

I don’t know. Nobody knows.

Found this late last night thanks to Jeff Veen, who is happy to be an entrepreneur instead of his previous profession, a journalist. First off, Shirky is a New Media Professor and runs the conference circuit as well, in case you were wondering. Second, this is a very decent obituary.
I think I've seen the result of new media being offloaded to that "experimental" area where it could be ignored en masse.

As I'm sure we'll see more obituaries for newspapers, and a good first step towards the more importnant discussion; where is journalism is going? What is promising is that I've seen this article being passed around on microblogs and blogs all day, which in and of itself may give you an idea of what will replace newspapers.*

Comparing the internet to the Gutenberg press is a decent analogy. In its chaos, it was ultimately as devastating as it was rewarding. The winners in the long run will be the consumers, many of whom will have a greater hand in shaping and forming the news.

The Gutenberg press empowered people the ability to read. The internet is and will empower people to write. Don't cry over the death of the newspaper for too long or fret for the future of journalism, it is the dawn of a very exciting new day.

[First posted on my favorite microblogs and reposted here.]