Jarvis takes a look at the future for journalism

Jeff Jarvis over at Buzz Machine and in the news recently has given his forecats for the future of the profession and they are well worth a read.

This is a summary of his thoughts

1.The next generation of local (news) won’t be about news organizations but about their communities

2.The local news organization inevitably will be smaller because it no longer holds a monopoly in a scarcity economy

3.News will emerge from networks.

4.The heart of the work of local news organizations will be beats.

5.Editing will change. Editors will become more curators, aggregators, organizers, educators. Their jobs will be less about controlling a flow than encouraging and improving creation.

6.Some - only some - journalism will be supported by the public

7.Investigative journalism will continue from the news organization and from collaborative efforts

8.Specialization will take over much of journalism. We’ll no longer all be doing the same things - commodifying news - but will stand out and contribute uniquely by covering a niche deeply

But perhaps most importantly

Revenue will still come from advertising. The best hope is to find ways to serve a new population of small advertisers who never could afford to use newspapers before along with some aggregation of audience for regional advertisers.