Recreating the newspaper business
An esteemed colleague has pointed me in the direction of an entertaining article by Tim Porter, independent/freelance journalist. A terrific rant about how so many newspaper people are bemoaning the stagnation of a once-dynamic industry, but are actually very much to blame for it. Newspapers, the Internet, both subjects very close to my heart.
The idea that appealed to me most (and there’s something here for everyone) was to imagine what the business might be like if you could recreate it from scratch, with no holds barred. Then to say: now, how do we get from here to there?
Stephen tells me this is like the difference between Cartesian and Radial people. Cartesians pick some far-distant point and say “We need to be there”. Radial people turn a bit, move out a bit, turn a bit more, move out a bit more, and so on. They may not have a distant vision, but they’re constantly moving to a better place.
And then we move onto Tom Coates’ ninjas versus pirates and elves versus dwarves. How do you place yourself? Or your friends.
