Bright future for news business
Media moguls viewed the iPad not as a revolutionary gadget, but a time machine with a square, tabloid shape and apps that would allow them to recapture lost subscribers. Instead, newspapers and magazines now grapple with clunky pay walls and their circulation remains in freefall, as the mainstream media struggle with the dizzying pace of change in the Internet age. The iPad disrupted the news business. People used the apps on it to get their news from Facebook or Google+. “It’s important we focus on the future, not the past,” warned Richard Gingras, head of news products for Google. “We can’t reverse time.” Gingras came to the Nieman Journalism Lab Friday not as doomsayer from Silicon Valley to predict the demise of the news business, but rather to foresee a bright future. “I do feel these are extraordinary times,” Gingras said. “We are in the beginnings of a renaissance in journalism.” But to get there,...