Print media today is not too dissimilar to the way it was 70 years ago. In some way, it is doing even much better: there are far more newspapers and readers in the world.
Ultimately, paper newspapers are to be phased out, with the arrival of audiovisual media, internet media, consoles, newspapers and televisions online, and the opportunity for all persons to inform on sites like You-Tube, whose remuneration is close to that of radio.
The fastest prognosis talks about 2017 in the USA, 2019 in Great Britain, 2024 in Spain, 2029 in France. For another section of humanity, a large number, who will not have a much higher standard of living than today’s Western middle class, it is likely that the written press will be in use for a long time. But even in Africa, with the emergence of billions of mobile phones, it is likely that paper newspapers will be gone in about 70 years time.
Furthermore, new technologies lie ahead: Google Glass, transmission by virtual screen, even transmission of human thought; and the reader will be invited to get close to the subject, with the power of being able to see through the eyes of a journalist.
The press will be fully digital, with automatic translation in the language of the reader. It is likely that the centralized collection of information will be increasingly supported by government subsidies. Increasingly, information will be provided by the people themselves. Everyone will be a reporter in a global system of P2P. The drafting of a number of articles will be automated. (the American based company Narrative Science already generates Economic based articles understood out of raw data). The press will probably emanate from affinity based aggregators in terms of health, readings, purchases, trips and time spent reading (the American based company Demand Media analyzes keywords according to the web user preferences and then provides a personalized referencing). Video (3D) will obviously replace the image and probably writing in part. Fact-checking will be fully automated.
As a consequence, the profession of journalist will be totally transformed: the component « coverage of events » will shrink until it disappears; only the functions of investigative reporter (senior reporters, major investigations) and of columnist (explain, analyze, put into perspective) will be left, which by their less descriptive nature, cannot be automated. This will give more value to the weekly.
Paper will probably come back also with ultrafine interactive screens technologies which should allow press editors to integrate video content and for the reader to print the newspaper at home.
We will see the mingling of print media, broadcast media, press online, information, education and entertainment.
Nothing excludes the possibility of hyper-surveillance of the media, by using these new technologies. As always, freedom of the press will remain a major challenge. It will increasingly blend with the freedom of thought, and even a way to avoid the intrusion of censorship within one’s own mind.
j@attali.com