NYU professor and Internet thinker Clay Shirky on the future of accountability journalism in a world of declining newspapers. On the advertising-based business model of journalism:
“Best Buy was not willing to support the Baghdad bureau because Best Buy cared about news from Baghdad. They just didn’t have any other good choices.”
On the death of the home page:
“The number of people who go to the Times’ homepage as a percentage of total readership falls every year — because you don’t go to the Times, you go to the story, because someone Twittered it or put it on Facebook or sent it to you in email. So the audience is now being assembled not by the paper, but by other members of the audience.”