Reasons to Be Optimistic During the Disruption of Publishing

The challenge, of course, is that we know how to monetize a print newspaper or magazine - and it's easier to charge for their perceived value. We're still figuring out how to monetize digital forms. But amidst this challenge, I'd argue we're not seeing less quality journalism today, we're seeing more, because we have no distribution barriers and low start-up costs in digital publishing. I'd also ask if we really think the system pre-Internet was producing quality journalism, or if we merely prefer the devil we know. In the mid-20th century, media began to be operated by handful of conglomerates with significant control over the mass mediums of radio, TV, newspapers and magazines, a system that was hard for outside voices to access. To be sure, these major media conglomerates are being disrupted by another set of powerhouses (Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook), but the latter provide us possibilities that didn't exist before: the ability to directly reach a specific, targeted readership and gather a community, which can lead to monetization by individuals and businesses alike.