Thursday, August 23, 2007

RIP Business Section

In the internet age how can the business section of the newspaper survive? I guess you could say the same thing for general news. But the news flow in business is a different beast than in any other beat. It changes on a minute by minute basis. Even in tv journalism where we might have one hour leadtime before presenting a live report on a news item, often it's hard to keep up. How can printed business news hold up when the stories have been written in some cases twelve hours previously? In no other area of news is access to timely and up-to-date information as paramount. And nowhere else does the "ancient history" tag apply as aptly than to the printed business word. Sure the newspaper's website can update the story. But in the meantime the printed version will do nothing but fester and draw attention to itself as a uselessless incarnate. Television journalists routinely used to rip off newspaper journalists for story ideas. But now the ripping off has moved to the wire service, Bloomberg, Reuters, AP etc. These guys break the story online. Then everyone else follows.

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