There may be a more ridiculous paradox in journalism than “Read Less, Know More”, but much like a successful news business model, it has yet to be discovered.
“Read Less, Know More” is the motto for the news aggregating website Newser. With these words, founder Michael Wolff’s website could be contributing to the “dumbing down” of America.
The Newser aggregating method is that of gathering news articles from mainstream news sites and reducing them to 65-120 words. Various sites such as the Huffington Post, Spectra, and 10X10 are also following this “quick read” format that is claimed to be the future of journalism. Meanwhile, Americans are missing out on vital information and Wolff may not be taking into consideration that he is encouraging that the nation become less knowledgeable for the sake of profit.
“I’m trying to put newspapers out of business. I mean literally,” said Wolf in an interview with CNBC.
While Newser summarizes content from traditional news sources, Wolff also admits his intentions of contributing to their demise at the same time. Here in lies another paradox. Should the news sites like New York Times or Wall Street Journal no longer exist, there will be no foundation for Newser. The aggregator would be no substantial information to aggregate from.
To make matters worse, in attempting to reshape the future of journalism, Wolff is excluding the necessity of the Journalist. Much like the Amazon’s Kindell and other electronic reading devices are making book printing obsolete, Newser and similar sites are increasing the number of unemployed journalist.
Wolff advocates “a world of bloggers” that leaves no place for professional educated journalists. Despite his background that is heavily drenched in writing and reporting, he seems to be lacking an understanding of what journalism is and should be.
While many are scrambling for a new business model to save the future of traditional news, it would be best that the ideas do more good than harm. The future can’t be too bright with nation of uninformed, “dumbed down” Americans.
