The future of newspapers

Richard Posner gives us an update.

I agree with most of what he says, in particular I like to believe that the thesis that the transitory (/expected) income shock many people experience rigth now might shift their consumption patterns permanently in a way that will harm the printed news medias also in the long run is valid. The likely impact of this effect is increased by the combined facts that a) the slowdown has hit males much harder than females and b) males are all else equal more likely to have a newspaper subscription than females.

However, do notice that we’re in Denmark still pretty far away from a “paperless society” without printed news (…that people pay for) and -entertainment (I have to add this, even if it is perhaps redundant: Who can tell the difference these days anyway?). For the period 2005-2007, the average annual household spending on newspapers and magazines in Denmark exceeded 2200 kroner*, or about 6 kroner a day pr. household. The number will surely be lower for the period 2007-2009, but the point stands.
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*I’d like to throw a link, but I have a bad experience with linking to dst-tables. However, if you want to know, go to Statistikbanken’s website, then select FU5: Husstandenes årlige forbrug efter forbrugsart og husstandsgrupper. That table has data on this specific variable from 1993 to 2007.

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Update: I must admit I hadn’t noticed that Becker had already published his post when I read Posner’s. Here it is. His conclusion:

Although the printed newspaper industry is doomed, and will be missed by those of us that remember newspapers in their heyday, they are being replaced by good substitutes in the form of blogs, social networks like Facebook and Twitter, online news gathering by various groups, including newspapers, and other electronic forms of communication. People in democracies will continue to have access to independent and often quite accurate, reports on events in their own countries and most other parts of the world. In fact, the populations of undemocratic countries now have much greater access to what is happening in the world than they had in the past because it is far more difficult to suppress access to the Internet and other electronic forms of communication than it is to suppress newspapers.

Becker’s notions about the also in the future continued free access to independent and accurate news in democratic nations even despite the death of the traditional printed newspapers only apply if politicians don’t fuck it up. I’m not sure they won’t, and I’m sure they’ll try: For example by handing out ever increasing amounts of the taxpayers’ money to the traditional newspapers in order to force people to continue to buy their products, or (no wait, it’s and, not or) by telling people what they can, and cannot, write on blogs/twitters/facebook pages/ect.

Bloggingheads

I was completely unaware of the existence of this great ressource, but at least now I know about it because of Tyler Cowen.

The link provided by Tyler is recommendable; the debaters are Henry Farrell (from the website CrookedTimber) and Megan McArdle(/”janegalt”). The main subjects of discussion are the politics of global warming, minimum wage, EU and health care. I guess most of the time, when we are confronted with the opinions and arguments of a good looking young woman on the one hand and the arguments of a tubby middleaged (male) professor on the other, our subjective weighting of the arguments would tend to favor the position of the latter. This debate is just another example why it is so important to be aware of and counteract such implicit biases…

The medium is a little like a podcast, however I personally think I prefer the former. It is great that you can actually see the facial expressions and reactions of the debaters and it gives a whole new dimension to the discussion (although I guess most autistic readers of the blog would disagree).

Enjoy!