The New Daily, a national newspaper launched in the UK two months ago, is to close. Here is brutal commentary from Jeff Jarvis, respected American journalist and journalism professor:
It is most unfortunate that every time this happens, journalists suffer job losses or at least disruption. But enough with the Quixotic attempts to preserve a dying business model that we know is dying. First there was the News Corp. tablet app that was going to preserve our God-given right to package the news and get paid for it. Dead. Then came the Orange County Register’s doubling down on print. Bankruptcy. Now there’s Trinity Mirror’s new print newspaper New Day. Folded.
Yes, I argue that we must innovate. But sorry, these are not innovations. these are exercises in nostalgia. Innovation would be using new tools in new ways to serve people as we could never serve them before.
So, yes, I’m sorry for the disruption to the journos in this latest case but I cannot help chortling at the comeuppance to this effort to restart the Brigadoon Daily, doomed from the start.
I like Jarvis’ directness. I also agree with him. The future of news is about news and not the medium. Too much time is spent by too many on the medium while the future slips away from them.