Another Blow to Legacy Media Courtesy of Online Media

Why is it that many legacy media types are jumping ship to online media?

In an article I read today by Mark Glaser, he (Glaser) conducts an interview with the "dean of media critics" Howard Kurtz. It was announced this week that Kurtz would be leaving the Washington Post after 29 years to join Tina Brown's online only Daily Beast. Why, would a journalist/critic such as Kurtz, leave the Washington Post to join an online only media source that has been losing money since it started?

Well that just seems to be the growing trend among old fashioned journalists. Many of whom are leaving the traditional media market to join the ever growing online media market. Kurtz is quoted in the article as saying he "was enticed by the prospect of working with Brown, and helping to shape a start up."

Here's what I think. This move is definitely a blow to traditional media. Seeing a well known journalist make a move to a strictly online media source has to raise some eyebrows. In reality however I feel Kurtz has made a wise decision.

Online media is where journalism is heading. It is only a matter of time before we start seeing more and more print newspapers fade away due to lack of revenue and/or readership. As much as I wish this was not the case, it is.

Kurtz is all the wiser for making the jump now and getting his foot in the door before the proverbial herd follows. Whether or not Kurtz has success in this start up venture remains to be seen. If he does then great. If not then I'm sure there will be yet another online media source he could go to because lets face it, legacy media outlets are fading fast. Online media is quickly moving from the future to now. The only thing to ask now is who goes next?





Photo courtesy of Yan Arief, Flickr

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Technology and journalism converge at Newseum

The front pages of newspapers after Obama's victory
on an inside wall of the Newseum

Hewlett-Packard and the Newseum will become founding partners and are encouraging the rapidly changing technology and media worlds as they converge.

HP has generously offered $5 million to the Newseum in Washington, D.C. in an effort to create a journalism technology exhibit.

The exhibit will incorporate a live "Twitter-like"  news feed on touch-activated walls for which museum goers can interact.

This will allow a large array of museum goers to learn about the uses of media and how it affects them in order to spark the interests of all age groups and backgrounds.

Shelby Coffey, a Newseum trustee and former editor of the Los Angeles Times said the exhibit will be designed "so we'll be able to change things within it" as quickly as possibly and in time with the fast-paced changes in technology.

The more I pay attention to news about the media and journalism, the more I see it coinciding with advances in technology. There is an obvious correlation between the two and I found it to be clever that HP has  employed their own resources to better educate the population.

HP has realized the growing uses of technology in the media world and this large donation is evidence of just that. McKinney pointed out that "our customers use our technology to access that kind of information."

McKinney hopes the exhibit will represent coverage of breaking news in similar ways that live streams like Twitter have done. At the same time, it will educate viewers about being wary of the accuracy of some social-media sources. Not everything you read on the Internet is true.

This generation of journalists will likely benefit from the exhibit because the majority have grown up using technology to gain a competitive advantage.

More than anything, it's common sense that says journalists are going to be moving right along with advances in technology. It's encouraging to me and I'm sure many other journalists that museums such as the Newseum are staying as relevant as media says they should.

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