How much are you willing to read?

Most news that we meet online comes in small, manageable bites, but this morning I found an article that requires devoted attention through six long pages. Nonetheless, this article by James Fallows in the Atlantic rewards the effort (and the eyestrain). Fallows reports on the efforts Google is making to revive the news profession. Instead of pooh-poohing print media as many online types tend to do (Remember Steve Jobs saying "Print is dead"?) the folks at Google understand the importance of allowing ordinary citizens to get access to news. To do that requires more than just on-the-spot tweets from major events, it requires dedicated journalists with enough background to understand the background and history of stories. Video clips of David Cameron and Nick Clegg standing side by side at 10 Downing Street do not reveal the tortured history and uncertain future of coalition governments in Britain. So what are we to do as newspaper circulations drop and TV news becomes a series of one-sided blasts from opinionated political junkies? It may not seem that children's librarians need to trouble themselves with this question, but it is the children we serve today who will determine the future of media--of the country--in the future. The more we help them to understand the choices they need to make about which news is worth paying attention to and how to find it, the better they will be able to run the world. Google is working on various models to understand how news will be transmitted in the future; some will probably thrive and others will founder. It is important for those of us who work with information to understand the changes that are coming about and to help our patrons to understand them too. So yes, six pages on a computer screen takes some time to read, and printing it out may mean it will be buried on your desk for weeks, but it's worth setting aside some time to read Fallows article and to follow what Google and other companies are doing to salvage our right to hear the news we need.

Who reads newspapers?

The death of newspapers is a favorite topic not only among journalists but among teachers, librarians and others who think reading is important. It's hard to know what the future of print newspapers will be, as subscriptions dwindle week by week. Reading newspapers online continues to be popular, and for teens it's almost the only way to get newspaper content. The problem is that newspapers haven't been able to make a profit by providing content online. Now google has come along with a service designed to make reading newspapers and other news sources online faster and easier. As this N.Y. Times article reports, getting news faster is the goal for most people. Google's new service makes scanning the front pages of newspapers and magazines faster and easier. The revenue will still come from ads, but if more people start using the tool, ads may bring in more revenue. Check out the news story and take a look at google's new initiative. This may be the future of newspaper.