The Newspaper of the Future, Just Like your Library

Jack Shafer has an article out today in Press Box on the newspaper of the future “If we’re lucky, it will look something like the newspaper of the past.” Found via Center for Citizen Media.

It’s an excellent article. The main point: Just because they aren’t employing as many people doesn’t mean newspapers in the future will have to suck.

“The connection between quality and head count would seem intuitive, but a dip into the microfilm archives of the New York Times and Washington Post shows that decent newspapers have been produced with far fewer hands.”

While I agree with Shafer, that the number of employees doesn’t necessarily equate to quality, I find it hard to imagine that future newspapers will be anything like what the newspapers of old were. It’s just a simple fact — we live in an age where information travels fast and furious. Maybe the reporting was good, but they still delivered the morning paper with a horse and buggy. That won’t cut it today.

Jack Shafer is a smart guy who probably realizes this too. In fact, the one time I spoke with Shafer was for an article on Internet Multitasking Syndrome — writing for the web in an age when the average attention span is less than 10 seconds. Catering to that fact alone requires a different approach to news.

Point is: I imagine the newsroom of the future to be very different from current or old newsrooms in one major and all encompassing change: Newsrooms will be open. Newsrooms will be public resources, like your local library — it will be a space for content producers to come and and work on stories in collaboration with their local reporters (just like doing research with a librarian today). They will share knowledge and use the resources (perhaps even state funded resources) to cover their local government.

Perhaps even fourth grade classes will take field trips to their newsroom when they reach the “online” part of their curriculum. “Okay class, today we are going to learn about blogging. And to show us, a real reporter from our local paper will tell us about the newsroom and how you too can use it.”

The newsroom of the future might not have as many “employees” — but it will have lots of volunteers. It will host unconferneces and will let people check out video and audio equipment.

This might be a scary though to a reporter today — but for the practice of journalism it can only be good. It just requires a shift in thinking in order to accept it and realize the potential behind a civic newsroom.