The Status Quo is a Losing Proposition

The January 27, 2009, New York Times editorial page contains an item by David Swensen and Michael Schmidt describing a solution to the predicted emergent demise of print newspapers: privately endow a few papers to operate in the public interest as nonprofit organizations.  Swensen and Schmidt's economics make sense, assuming a big enough endowment and a better rate of return than now exists, but the case they make seems to miss the point that the media world is changing and that hanging onto old models may make us feel good, but it seldom works in the long run.

But, that is exactly what most of us try to do when faced with massive social and technical change: we hang onto our old models and try to adapt reality to fit the former framework.  That's exactly why school, whether at the university or elementary and secondary levels, looks recognizably like school did in the 18th Century.  

Sooner or later, our concept of "news" will change, most likely because there will be so little of it delivered via print.  One can wax nostalgic for the days of muckraking journalism and newsboys hawking the evening paper (both of which--newsboys and evening papers--seem to have disappeared), or one can set about helping shape what news will look like in a world as if conventional newspapers had never been invented.  The status quo is a losing proposition, and not just for newspapers.