It has become painstakingly obvious anymore that the old model of journalism was flawed early on. It was successful, no doubt, thanks in large part to any lack of true competition. The Chicago Tribune dominated the Midwest, the NY Times the Northeast and so on. In some places that is still true today: You can see The Oregonian’s colossal presence statewide, albeit smaller paper’s struggle to contend.
But these time-tested pillars of success are beginning to topple.
Where The Oregonian once dominated the state, smaller organizations are now thriving. True, those same outlets haven’t skated free and clear, either, but they’ve evolved faster than the dinosaurs with which they previously competed: In place of gargantuan-sized staffs filling the pages of color dailies, consumers are enjoying free, online content specific to their exact county, their city and even their neighborhood.
Indeed, the key factor to this whole evolution (rather, devolution, in some cases) has been just one word: local.
Long gone are the (successful) days of state-wide journalism. Oh, sure, there will always be a story affecting mass amounts of people, and the larger organizations will continue to bank on those big breaks. But by keeping things at the micro-level, the future of journalism will surely thrive. How? Nobody knows exactly. When? Good question.
Some areas may succeed with simply well-timed blog posts; others, video presentations. Multimedia will flourish while paper products vanish. One thing will be certain, though: As long as it’s local, it will surely succeed.
