Time's Running Out

This just in from Time magazine.

Time Inc., the country's largest magazine publisher, spent the morning telling hundreds of staffers their jobs were being eliminated -- in its latest and largest yet round of staff cuts -- for the company's good.

Meanwhile, the sale of the LA Times is going badly.  An analysts on Public Radio's "Market Place" was asked to describe the auction last night and simply said "Ouch!"

We learned in high school that industries become obsolete and disapear--bugy whip makers, milk men and movie theater ushers are gone.  The Oldmobile went the way of the Nash, but no one seemed to realize the speed with which the internet would wipe out businesses and indeed entire professions.  Tower Record's business model became obsolete and it folded.  My kids have never seen a "Record Store."  Travel agents are nearly gone.  Call a broker to buy stock?  Give me a break.

Just as I marvel that a man in a green truck used to bring milk to my door each morning, my children will marvel that a someone used to bring a 5 pound stack of paper to our door step at 5:00 every morning. 

I don't know what will surprise them more, that I paid to buy it, or that someone got paid to write it. 

Comments

[Matt]

It suprises my kids that I used to deliver papers on a bicycle. My first job, and made decent money. I threw for the Phoenix Gazette, possibly the first media victim of modernization.

[Nick]

No loss if a once great publication fails!

[Stacy]

Newspapers are more analogous to milkmen than to buggy whips. There's still a demand for the core product, information. It's just the delivery that's going to change.

I still depend a lot on the MSM. Don't you?

[BobH]

I agree, Stacy. "Newspaper" is a compound word -- news is still in demand, it's the paper that is now irrelevant.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of the people in the MSM are still in denial about this -- or they are at least still unable to figure out an appropriate response.