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Frightened Already?
18 Doughty Street, a new web TV channel hasn't even launched yet, and already the mainstream media is wheeling out its big guns to attack it.
Guido reports how Channel Four News has already described the channel as "right-wing" - about the worst insult the notoriously left-leaning broadcaster can chuck at the upstart rival.
18 Doughty Street's founder describes the enterprise as "an anti-establishment, insurgent channel standing up for the little guy against big media, big business, big politics and big and undemocratic international institutions.
"(...)we want to challenge the biases of big media, the tendency of some big businesses to act against the public interest, the consensual nature of too much contemporary politics and the unaccountability of institutions like the EU and UN."
Sounds like an alternative. What's ironic is Channel Four once prided itself on its outsider status. Launched in 1982, it was designed as an "alternative" to mainstream television. Viewers back then might have been forgiven for thinking "Hooray! A channel which shatters the tepid and corrupt left wing consensus that dominates much of the broadcast media."
Except they'd be disappointed: Channel Four offered an alternative alright, but one which was based on the premise that the mainstream media doesn't lean far enough left.
Free for all
It isn't just Channel Four that's getting the jitters because of media changes. It's print equivalent, the Guardian, published an in depth look at the growth of London's free newspaper market.
In short, media commentators don't like 'em: "A travesty of journalism" and "McJournalism" are two of the politer descriptions of the freesheets. And for sure, the Metro or Paris' 20 Minutes are not exactly Le Monde Diplomatique or The New York Review of Books. However, it isn't just the cost-cutting, bite-sized news that concerns commentators: There is a fear that serious journalistic duties, like investigative and international reporting, will be sidelined.
This has been a long-term complaint from media commentators: Indeed, the obsession with celebrity trivia which drives the sales of the UK's mass-market tabloids has also been blamed in the past for luring resources away from serious news stories.
Some commentators forecast the print media's death in 2043: Others put the death of paid-for mass market papers at 2012, just in time for the Olympics. It might be that most newspapers will follow their online versions and start giving away free editions (The Guardian already publishes a series of PDF news sheets).
On the other hand, it's possible that the freebie market will bring closer the arrival of the media commentator's cherished vision: A high-quality "elite" newspaper with serious reporting and a serious cover price. Examples exist in some countries (Denmark's is discussed in the Guardian feature) but in larger markets, such beasts are difficult to distinguish from already-existing elite publications, like the Economist, the FT, the Spectator and even the Guardian, which only this week published an excellent lengthy extract from a new biography of Thomas Hardy.
If the Guardian can come up with more like this, even EURSOC might consider buying it!
Roll out the barrel
From the BBC comes news that digital, "roll-up" newspaper is getting closer. Just last year, Correspondent.com reported that flexible plastic sheets capable of carrying news and video could be up to ten years away: The Beeb speaks to a Cambridge team who are using "morphing metal" sheets to create foldable or roll-up screens for laptops.
A digital paper you can pop in your pocket on the way to work, which updates when you enter a wifi zone, that can carry video images as well as text and graphics... even if paper dies out, news companies could find a new model in this innovation.
