Crain's Detroit Business: "Use the new media to inform"

Hey Everybody,

Crain’s Detroit Business published in the August 11, 2008 issue my letter to the Editor, “Use the new media to inform”:

I’ve included the text below.

Cheers,

Scott


--------------------

Editor:

It's sad to watch The Detroit News struggle, though it's happening to local newspapers across the country. To simplify Bill Shea's excellent July 7 article (“More bad news for The News”), Internet sites such as Craigslist are starting to dominate the market for local classified advertising. Publishers have to make up for the losses by decreasing news and increasing advertising within the paper. The resulting degradation of the news product fosters a vicious negative cycle that depresses the valuation of the asset and creates financial jeopardy.

Such a course of events in local news is particularly damaging here because good, deep coverage is the life-blood of a desperately needed, vibrant civic culture.

Now here's the rub: The counter-trend to the demise of the newspaper is the rise of the Internet. The shift in power from one to the other is the primary reason that clumsy media companies such as Gannett are in trouble in the first place. The problem in Michigan is greater than elsewhere because, for whatever reason, innovation in local news and information over the Internet using the Web, blogging, YouTube, and social networking sites like Facebook lags other states and metropolitan areas.

Because a vibrant civic culture is critical here, those that care about Michigan can and must make a major push to enable and encourage citizens to inform one another through “self-generating content” platforms such as blogs and social networking sites. Investment of time, energy and resources by civic, political and business leaders into this sector will foster the critical new media ecology for our state. Such investment will pay off by spurring on a vibrant civic culture that serves the information needs of our local democracy despite the unfortunate demise of competitive markets for local newspapers.

Scott Aikens
Birmingham