four quotes and a constant

Jay Bookman in his editorial piece 'When myths take priority over the facts' recently wrote that:

Nations, businesses and institutions also create and live by mythologies. To cite an example uncomfortably close to home, newspapers have long embraced the mythology — backed by some 500 years of history — that what we do is indispensable to an informed society. That mythology has now been exploded with the arrival of the Internet, pushing the industry into a desperate search for a narrative that better fits the world around us. We are coming to realize that if you ever let your mythology become too distant from how the world really works, you're in trouble.

Sion Touhig wrote at the end of last year on his blog that:

Bizarrely, the enormous audience drift from print to the online space is seen in some photojournalistic circles as a 'crisis'...it ignores the massive audience potential of the Internet and seeks to solve the crisis, by retreating further into a hermetically sealed world of books, galleries and subsidies from various grants and competitions.

Sion then he had another entry where he discussed:

The Fourth Screen & the Seventh Mass Media...
Visual audience evolution in four screens:
1/ Cinema
2/ Television
3/ Computer
4/ Online handheld devices, like the just announced Apple 'iPhone'

The potential audiences to be reached by visual material is potentially mind boggling in a new age of consumer defined media consumption - people will increasingly obtain visual information at times, places and in types of their choosing, NOT defined by the schedules of TV channels, or the print runs of newspapers.

It also represents a possible huge audience for photojournalism, perhaps surpassing the previous print audience...if we make efforts to engage with them via this route.

Finally, David Nordfors on his blogs about how 'Journalism Now Subject to Moore's law'

By going on the Internet, the news industry has become subject to Moore's law (things entering the market in two years time will have double the capacity of the stuff being released today).

Many newsrooms are bothered by introducing new tools and routines. They better start enjoying it, because as from now, as soon as they have made a change, they need start planning for changing it again.

So add it all up as the Violent Femmes would sing and what do you get?

News organizations, formerly newspapers, are going to have to innovate faster than they ever have in previous times. How you get news and stories to your audience will change, that is virtually guaranteed. What is the up side? More people can get to your content, local content will still be important and content will still be king. BUT, now you will have to complete cross platform and cross media and now nationally and internationally. Are you up to the challenge?