Jarvis to Newspaper Publishers: “You Blew It”

BuzzMachine’s Jeff Jarvis has stirred up the it’s-too-late-to-save-the-newspaper pot. More than 80 people have commented on his post from yesterday titled, “The speech the NAA should hear.” The NAA, or Newspaper Asssociation of America is meeting in San Diego this week. Jarvis’ summation to the newspaper publishers: “You blew it.”

I’m not going to excerpt it all here, because that wouldn’t be fair. And it’s that issue, fair use, that re-started this whole harangue earlier this week.

You blew it.

And now you’re angry. Well, gentlemen – and that’s pretty much all I see before me: angry, old, white men – you have no right to anger. Instead, you are the proper objects of anger. The public should be angry with you for the poor stewardship you have exercised over the press and its service to society. Your journalists are angry at you for losing their jobs. Your pressmen and drivers and classified-ad takers are angry at you for the same reason (and at the journalists for paying attention only to their own plight). Your advertisers were angry at you for using your monopolistic power to overcharge them and for providing inefficient platforms and bad service for so long. But they’re not angry anymore because they left you for better advertising vehicles and better prices in a competitive marketplace.

Click here to read the whole thing, and I strongly encourage it.

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