Damien Mulley has a very interesting post today on the future of news and media and the furory around the iPad.As Mulley points out, the technology itself will not save news organisations that produce crap content, nor will simply attempting to charge people for online content save the news industry.
It goes back to David Simons excellent summation of the state of the US newspaper industry:
"When you hear a newspaper executive claiming that his industry is an essential bulwark of society and that it stands threatened by a new technology that is, as of yet, unready to shoulder the same responsibility, you may be inclined to empathize. And indeed, that much is true enough as it goes.
But when that same newspaper executive then goes on to claim that this predicament has occurred through no fault on the industry's part, that they have merely been undone by new technologies, feel free to kick out his teeth. At that point, he's as fraudulent as the most self-aggrandized blogger."
Newspaper managers and shareholders have a lot to answer for the decimation of the industry and in the same way that the demise of quality news is not solely the fault of the web, nor is any single product or technology going to save the industry.
Charging for bad content, whether it is online or offline, from under-trained, ridiculously over-worked journalists who don't have enough time, energy or resources (and who occasionally are just bad journalists) to produce good content is not a realistic option.
The problems that face the news industry now are many and complicated. At their core though, they go back to poor management. And not even an iPad can save an industry who's managers don't understand their product.
