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There is a lot of hue and cry amongst bloggers about how Mr. Murdoch is committing harakiri by talking about blocking Google.

1. The way search works is that if newspapers leave the search engines blogs will rise and become more powerful.
2. Blogs will make more money, get more readers, become more trusted.  

Why then are Blogs trying to save newspapers?

Perhaps Blogs really care about newspapers and want to save them.

This is the rationale that will appeal most to people who believe that people are fundamentally good (no one has proven good or evil exists so how could we know).

1. Blogs see newspapers are jumping off the cliff. 
2. Although it helps blogs, they still want to do the right thing and let newspapers know. 
3. Blogs are newspapers’ knight in shining armour. Saving them from a terrible, terrible mistake.

Let’s say there’s a 75% chance that this is what it is – Blogs care deeply about newspapers and journalism and they want quality competition and that’s why they are so critical of Mr. Murdoch’s idea.

That still leaves 25%.

Perhaps Bloggers care more about arguing and railing against Mr. Murdoch than doing what’s best for them

This is possible too. Perhaps Blogs do want newspapers to die.

• They are just so intent on being right that they’ll save newspapers just to win the argument.
• Perhaps they don’t just want newspapers dead. They want newspapers to be dead and to be able to say - ‘We Bloggers, we tried to save them. Yet they wouldn’t listen. It’s so unfortunate.‘

Let’s say there’s a 20% chance that this is what it is – Bloggers realize that newspapers dying is good for them and yet they want to have their cake and eat it too.

Which leaves us with just the 5% chance.

Could it be that blogs are wrong?

The current opinion has shifted from -  ‘Mr. Murdoch’s plan could never work’ to ‘All the major newspapers would have to join’.

Could it be that it will shift even more.

Are we suddenly discovering that newspapers aren’t the worthless doddering dinosaurs we thought they were?

1. The Washington Post-Amazon tie-up is far more crucial than people realize.
2. It’s as crucial as the potential Microsoft-News Corp. tie-up (which would be hugely important).

Suddenly newspapers are in demand. The same content that was worthless a few weeks ago suddenly has dual value -

1. Microsoft is ready to pay for the content itself.
2. Amazon wants to pay for traffic from newspapers – traffic that comes for the content.  

The ugly duckling has turned into a swan.

Perhaps Bloggers aren’t wrong – just evil.

Perhaps the 5% chance isn’t that Bloggers are wrong. It’s that Bloggers don’t want to pay for the news content they get for free.

‘Information wants to be Free’ empowers people and allows for a ton of possibilities - It also lets you fool newspapers for a really, really long time.

Eventually though, you realize P. T. Barnum was right. You can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

Both in the US and in the UK newspapers are realizing their content isn’t worthless and advertising isn’t the answer. Amazon and Microsoft are providing newspapers a lifeline – Will newspapers be able to open their eyes and step away from the delusions that have plagued them to this point?

Filed under: publishing Tagged: | future of newspapers, hope for news