mike_barton
Editor

Talkback: Is new media all that?

news
Jan 24, 20071 min

In InfoWorld chief technologist Tom Yager’s column today, he writes of the Net’s great expectations to replace traditional media, concluding: “The Internet is the right vehicle for carrying information to the masses, but traditional media, as technologically backward and restrictive as it is, can’t die out until the masses value immediacy and interactivity to the point of need, and everyone can get access to the Net for the price of a subscription to the local paper.”

Well, hang on a sec. The really big stories I see still come from near day-long reporting for the big dailies. Immediacy is nifty, but quality reporting takes time.

Tom says he reads newsweeklies, apparently finding them of high value. I think dailies serve the same function to the immediate-Web as weeklies do for the more-immediate dailies. In other words, they need each other.

Let’s hope that never dies. My rant is over. What do you think about where online fits in the media landscape: Replacement in wait, or additional source?

mike_barton

Mike Barton started out in online slinging HTML for CNET.com in the late 1990s and began his editorial career at New Media magazine shortly thereafter. In his early days, he was an editor at Ziff-Davis's PC Computing and ZDNet.com before heading Down Under, where he produced and edited the business and technology sections of The Sydney Morning Herald online. After returning to the States in 2006, he has worked for IDG's Infoworld, PCWorld, Computerworld, and CSO Online. He currently edits and produces WIRED.com's Innovation Insights, and is a contributing editor at ITworld.

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