Sunday, March 29, 2009

New Economic Order

I recently suspended home newspaper delivery while I am on vacation. However I wonder if home delivery will be an option when I get back. Traditional print newspapers appear to be dying off, supplanted by news sources on the Internet. Some newspapers will survive as websites but I can't see how the delivery of a printed edition can survive except where subscribers are willing to pay 2-3 times what they are currently charged.

Some blame the newspapers themselves for not seeing these changes coming or for not reacting to them appropriately. The same arguments are made regarding automobile manufacturers who took the competition from Japanese automakers too lightly and are now facing insolvency.

We could assign blame to just a few individuals perhaps but there is a quote which bears repeating here. I'm afraid the exact phrase and originator escape me now but it goes something like this: "It is hard to get a man to believe something when his earning a paycheck depends on his not believing it."

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