The newspaper world in 2020.

Jeff Jarvis has written an essay on newspapers in 2020.

By 2020, we had better hope that newspapers aren’t just papers anymore but are valued members of larger networks that enable their communities to gather, share, and make sense of the news they need.

And it is a valid point.

Once we get away from the product or indeed service being the printed form,it doesn't matter how the content is delivered

So rather than asking what a newspaper will be, I think we should ask what a news organization’s relationship with its community can be.

Jeff then goes on to talk about the medium making the best use of the technological efficiences that we now have and using them to survive.

The problem that Jeff recognises in all this is the low advertising revenue on the internet compared to the printed version where premium prices could be charged

The hard truth is that we are now operating in the post-scarcity media economy. Local newspapers are no longer monopolies and cannot count on charging the premium such controlled allowed. We also have left behind the age of mass media, and so large, national organizations – including and especially television – can no longer offer one-stop-shopping for marketers.

This is the economic truth of the future.It is not only in newspapers that revenues are falling but mass communications technology has increased choice and driven prices down.The consumer is no longer prepared to pay premium rates for information,or products.

Jeff predicts that

the surviving news organizations will be built on large and efficient advertising networks. They will place advertising not only on the content they create but, in far greater volume, on the content others create. This means they need to encourage others to create more quality content.

The problem is that will revenues be sufficient to support quality journalism?.Will we reach that utopian point where

most news coverage will not be created by people employed by our organizations. Much of it will still be created by professionals, by people making a living off journalism. But many of those will be independent.