The New York Times did a kind favour to the rest of the news media when, amidst the storm provoked by the sacking of its editor Jill Abramson, we got to see a report on the paper’s lack of progress in digital journalism by a group of its younger editors.
I don’t need to describe “Innovation” further for you: it’s been capably done elsewhere (see also here). Instead, I want to ask the question which I haven’t yet seen put, perhaps because it makes people a little nauseous. Is it actually possible for a big, mainstream newspaper to make the transition to being, principally, a digital platform for journalism? Not just make the transition slowly, painfully and with embarrassing mistakes but…not make it at all.
I’m by nature an optimist and I recently I wrote a book which, among other themes, looks at the regularity with which journalism re-invents itself when disrupted. But having read the 96 pages of the NYT document, even my faith in the future was dented.
As many other readers have said, it is a brutally frank self-examination. But for all the bravery involved, a number of questions just aren’t there. With all the fervour of tribesmen waving a talisman to ward off evil spirits, the authors repeatedly praise the outstanding quality of the NYT’s journalism. A touch smug, an outsider might think, but hardly controversial.
