Reluctant Blogger

How do I know Mr. Samuel Zell will never read this? Well, here’s the money quote from the WP article:

If all of the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content, how profitable would Google be?" Zell said during the question period after his speech. "Not very."

Before I get into the rant which prompted this post, let me just say at the outset that the question of how the news business will survive, and hopefully thrive, in the 21st century is an important one. Jason Calacanis offers a rebuttal to Mr. Zell’s quote that also includes some valuable recommendations, Dave Winer’s write-up from several weeks back is also excellent, and a few miscellaneous thoughts of my own are here.

Normally, I’d try to be more cautious and consider whether his words might have been taken out of context, but this is a man who understands what it means to speak on the record, so I feel comfortable taking the quote at face value, and at face value, I think it’s reasonable to say that this is not a man who spends any significant time on the internet.

I know, I know - surely not, right? Self-importance of the blogosphere aside for a minute, how could someone be in the news business and not spend a big chunk of their time getting a firsthand understanding of the biggest revolution in news - hell in information distribution - that has occurred in our lifetimes? Isn’t firsthand reporting a big part of what supposedly makes mainstream media superior to blogs? Yet as hard as this is to believe, I know it’s not uncommon - even among folks of distinction.

• Exhibit A:Larry "No thanks, I’ve never used the internet" King
• Exhibit B: the honorable Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens

Yeah, you caught me, this whole post was really just an excuse to link to this video so I have the link around for future reference…. >:)

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 8th, 2007 at 11:12 pm and is filed under , , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.