Michael Barone

Back to the Future on Online News

March 9, 2009 RSS Feed Print

By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Amazing. Here's a TV report from 1981 on how you can read a newspaper on your home computer. The economics have changed. It cost $10 to download the paper then (without pictures or comics) versus virtually nothing now.

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media,
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The economics and fundamentals of all media seem to be changing. Even many of the news websites are moving away from originating all their content. It is interesting to see that news sites are now linking to other news articles, and focusing on a narrower set of their own writing.

On top of that, there are many sites solely devoted to linking articles, such as drudgereport.com, and topical news aggregating websites, such as FreedomWatcher.com, etc. Certainly, the appeal of this type of news platform the huge free content base achieved by sourcing so broadly, and it achieves such success without an extensive staff.

Wade of TX 2:51PM March 26, 2009

Michael Barone

Michael Barone

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Michael Barone is a senior writer for U.S.News & World Report and principal coauthor of The Almanac of American Politics. He has written for many publications—including the Economist and the New York Times.

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