WSJ Editor Gerard Baker: 'Journalism Is Not a Dying Business'

[unhappycamper]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/wall-street-journal-editor-gerard-baker-on-the-us-newspaper-crisis-a-962426.html



In an interview, Gerard Baker, the editor in chief of the Wall Street Journal, discusses the wave of billionaires diving head first into the journalism business and his own newspaper's evolution after seven years of ownership by Rupert Murdoch.

WSJ Editor Gerard Baker: 'Journalism Is Not a Dying Business'
Interview Conducted By Isabel Hülsen
April 03, 2014 – 05:14 PM

SPIEGEL: Mr. Baker, you have five young daughters. Would you advise them to go into journalism today?

Baker: Yes I would. There are not many jobs with a higher calling. Journalism has a great future and an incredible value for society.

SPIEGEL: Circulation and advertising revenue have been shrinking for years now, especially in the United States. Apparently it is only billionaires who seem to be attracted by the newspaper business these days: Jeff Bezos of Amazon bought the Washington Post, investor John Henry snagged the Boston Globe and Warren Buffett is acquiring regional papers by the dozen.

Baker: Their investments demonstrate that journalism is not a dying business! They clearly see that there is value in news and that the future will be digital. No newspaper will survive the transition from print to online in its traditional form -- and some won't survive at all. That does not mean that journalism itself is doomed. On the contrary: There has never been a stronger need for reliable information. An internet pioneer like Jeff Bezos is right in believing that there is an opportunity to earn money here.


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Something Mark Felt once said sticks in my mind: "Follow the money."

[GeorgeGist]

1. says faux journalist ...

Mr. Baker started his working life in the financial sector, first as an analyst at the Bank of England, then as an economist at Lloyds Bank in the City of London.

He was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, where he graduated in 1983 with a First Class Honours Degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.

BUT NOT JOURNALISM.

http://jimromenesko.com/2012/12/03/gerard-baker-is-named-wall-street-journal-managing-editor-dow-jones-editor-in-chief/

[elleng]

2. No, its dead.

[Doctor_J]

3. Journalism is. Punditry, meanwhile, continues to grow

like cancer