{"id":1666,"date":"2008-10-13T15:43:15","date_gmt":"2008-10-13T14:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=1666"},"modified":"2008-10-13T15:59:04","modified_gmt":"2008-10-13T14:59:04","slug":"what-would-jeff-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2008\/10\/what-would-jeff-do\/","title":{"rendered":"What would Jeff do?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/span>n case you happen to be a journalist and Jeff Jarvis<\/strong><\/a> still has you thinking that newspaper problems are your fault, take a look at the New York Times<\/strong><\/em> from July, 1980 (and if you like catchy headlines, they don’t come much catchier than this):<\/p>\n

First U.S. Experiments in Electronic Newspapers Begin in Two Communities; 13 Newspapers to Be Added The Need for Newspapers A Communications Development Telephone, Cable and Airwaves A Warning on Regulation<\/a> <\/strong>[pay access].<\/p>\n

Here’s how it starts:<\/p>\n

After nearly three centuries in which newspapers were news printed on paper, the first major experiments in this country on the “electronic newspaper” got under way last week.<\/p>\n

For American newspapers, many of which are still uncertain whether a good offense is the best defense against the encroachment of electronics into the news business, it is a landmark development in the world of home computers, which ultimately are expected to revolutionize the way Americans receive information.<\/p>\n

Last week the Columbus Dispatch<\/em> began transmitting its entire editorial content to 3,000 home terminals around the country on a computer system called CompuServe. For $5 an hour, the home viewer can sit down at a computer keyboard and call up on the computer screen a list of all the stories appearing in The Dispatch<\/em> that day. The viewer can select any article from a condensed index and read it or scan it, much as he would a newspaper spread out before him, and then go on to the next selection.<\/p>\n

In addition, the viewer has access to articles by the Associated Press plus games, advertising and other consumer services…<\/p>\n

Another experiment, which is being watched closely by the rest of the newspaper industry, has just been started by the Knight-Ridder Newspapers in Coral Gables, Fla. The $1.5-million project provides news, advertising and other consumer services via 200 personal computers installed in area homes at no cost to the participating families. Knight-Ridder is supplying the computer and content and the Bell System is providing terminals and the telephone lines that link a central computer to the homes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, capitalism’s forces of creative destruction have ground CompuServe into dust quicker than the Columbus Dispatch<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

But let’s say back in 1980, when that was written, you’re a twenty-something writer for a paper like the San Francisco Examiner<\/a><\/em>. Let’s say you’re Jeff. What would you do? Sound the alarm? Use your small newspaper platform to call ‘bullshit’ on these attempts by the newspaper industry to modernise itself? Start a campaign?<\/p>\n

Well, he didn’t.<\/p>\n

So would you blame the young Jeff J for those sins of omission? Probably not. And should he blame journalists? You know the answer…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In case you happen to be a journalist and Jeff Jarvis still has you thinking that newspaper problems are your fault, take a look at the New York Times from July, 1980 (and if you like catchy headlines, they don’t come much catchier than this): First U.S. Experiments in Electronic Newspapers Begin in Two Communities; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,270],"tags":[268,1869,1873,1874,1870,1626,1619,1872,1416,1741,1871],"class_list":["post-1666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","category-news-biz","tag-associated-press","tag-columbus-dispatch","tag-consumer-services","tag-coral-gables","tag-electronics","tag-florida","tag-jeff-jarvis","tag-knight-ridder","tag-new-york-times","tag-newspapers","tag-telephone-lines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1666"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1669,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1666\/revisions\/1669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}