In 1993, author Michael Crichton had a seminal commentary published in Wired magazine (he also delivered the message in a speech at the U.S. National Press Club in Washington). He might have had the timing off, but his analysis is worth revisiting, considering the industry's recent troubles.
I am the author of a novel about dinosaurs, a novel about US-Japanese trade relations, and a forthcoming novel about sexual harassment - what some people have called my dinosaur trilogy. But I want to focus on another dinosaur, one that may be on the road to extinction. I am referring to the American media. And I use the term extinction literally. To my mind, it is likely that what we now understand as the mass media will be gone within ten years. Vanished, without a trace.
There has been evidence of impending extinction for a long time. We all know statistics about the decline in newspaper readers and network television viewers. The polls show increasingly negative public attitudes toward the press - and with good reason. A generation ago, Paddy Chayevsky's Network looked like an outrageous farce. Today, when Geraldo Rivera bares his buttocks, when the New York Times misquotes Barbie (the doll), and NBC fakes news footage of exploding trucks, Network looks like a documentary.
Skip ahead more than three years to an American Journalism Review article entitled Net Gain. Author J.D. Lasica wrote the following:
MICHAEL CRICHTON stood before a lunchtime crowd at a National Press Club banquet in April 1993 and delivered a simple message to the movers and shakers of journalism: Change your news culture, or become fossils. Adapt to the new digital realities, or become museum relics.
The author of "Jurassic Park" called upon news organizations to reinvent themselves, to abandon sensationalistic "junk-food journalism" in favor of a sensitive, informed, responsive approach that empowers the reader and removes the artificial filters that distort or trivialize the news.
He issued a warning: "To my mind, it is likely that what we now understand as the mass media will be gone within 10 years--vanished, without a trace."
Since that day three-and-a-half years ago, a lot of bits have passed under the virtual bridge. Consider:
The Internet has exploded in popularity, attracting an estimated 20 million users, many of whom spend every free moment cruising the World Wide Web. Almost overnight, new breeds of information-providers--from niche-news purveyors, like AT&T and c/net: The Computer Network, to more broad-based efforts from competitors like Microsoft--have jumped into the news pool, siphoning off subscribers, advertisers and employees from Old Media.
In response to that impending threat, newspapers have stampeded onto the Web. The number of online newspapers has soared from a handful to over 1,300 according to AJR/NewsLink.
So does Crichton approve of the news media's efforts to jump into the electronic frontier? "I think the major media are more out of touch than ever. And doing a worse job than ever. And receiving more public disdain than ever," he said in an e-mail interview.