Larry Borsato questions whether mainstream media is going to disappear or not as a counterpoint to Mark Evans' belief that mainstream media won't disappear because it's convenient. What now? Let me summarize: Mark Evans says mainstream media won't disappear because it's convenient. Larry Borsato isn't so sure, and wonders why else people would stick with mainstream media. I just wanted to throw a couple other thoughts into the mix: 1. Local News: As much as we've seen the expansion of online, local news and local-focused blogs, the mainstream media (particularly local/city newspapers) still give us the best and most local news. If I want to know what's going on around my city, or want to read about what's going on in my community, the city / community newspapers are still #1. And I don't see that changing for some time. 2. Expanding Our Knowledge: Granted, we can find anything we want about anything online, there's no question about that. But one argument I've heard for the benefit of newspapers is that it provides us with an accessible means to news we might not have been looking for. And I think Mark Evans is making this argument when he says, "...newspapers are designed to encourage discovery because you can quickly browse through several sections and read the news items that capture your attention..." Online, more and more effort is going towards finding ways of giving people exactly what they want. There's so much out there that systems are being designed to help us focus in on just the content we're interested in. And in many ways that's great, because now I can read 5,000,000 articles about a specific topic of interest. But the world isn't that myopic. There's a ton of stuff going on around us, and whether we're interested or not, there's value in being made aware of that stuff. Who knows, you might discover something that interests you, and you didn't even realize it. A newspaper helps with that, by using big headlines and images to grab our attention. It's there to say, "We found this interesting, and it might pique your interest as well." Almost everyone I know that reads a newspaper regularly has always had more diverse interests and could speak on a wider range of topics. The Internet is the great equalizer in many ways. It opens up such a vast amount of information that we could all become experts on everything. It's become very difficult for anyone (be it the media or a corporation) to hide anything. It's out there. But because of that, I think people are now trying to find ways of blocking "everything" out...because "everything" is just darn much. So all the information is out there, but you rarely hear of people just browsing around for the heck of it. People are online looking for stuff that specifically interests them, and they want it as quickly as possible. But people do browse newspapers, flipping pages, scanning headlines and they get drawn into the content. There's no denying newspapers are in trouble, but I don't think they'll disappear that quickly (if ever). Like any industry that's changing significantly and rapidly, mainstream media has to adjust, become nimble and evolve. (Technorati Tags: newspapers, mainstream media, larry borsato, mark evans)