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Mark Glaser believes that the ‘Cup Is Overflowing’ for Future of Journalism. As he writes:

Are technology and the Internet going to doom traditional reporting or strengthen it in the long run? Putting it bluntly, is journalism’s cup half full or half empty? The San Francisco Chronicle newspaper has been the nerve center for this debate. .. Within that single newspaper, the cup is half full with its popular SFGate website, while the cup is half empty as the print side makes another round of layoffs.

The Chinese curse invokes interesting times, but change opens up opportunities that would not otherwise have arisen. Beth Lawton, manager of digital media analysis at the Newspaper Association of America, believes that the cup is more than half full for newspaper journalism:

Newspapers have boundless opportunity, and there has been a lot of positive development with newspaper websites and other technologies in the past several years. There’s a ton of innovation, neat projects and good thinking coming out of newspaper’s newsrooms, and there are good people working there?In addition, more people than ever before are consuming newspaper content, thanks largely to the web, and newspaper site visitors are a very attractive audience for advertisers.

Yes, change can be difficult and not so much fun. Newspaper executives need to face this changing landscape with their heads up and eyes (and brains) open – and the view that the glass is half full. It won’t be easy, and it will take some innovative thinking, internal disruption, business savvy and more. Armed with those tools, the future for the newspaper industry and journalism as a whole will be so bright we’ll all be wearing shades.

Some in the newspaper industry may find that far too optimistic, but they may well be the ones who do not survive.

Related:
3 Non-blog Reasons Why Newspapers Are Dying
Interesting Times for Newspapers – Greg Sterling

Tags: newspapers