not fade away

Those who think the old media is over had better think again. Media companies never die—they adapt, however creakily. (updated with link: Jack Shafer has made this point, deliciously***).

History will record that the New York Times had a come-to-Jesus moment in mid-2007, when it finally Tore Down the $$ Wall (all bow down to Mickey Kaus) and then hitched its wagon to the blogosphere. (All the cool kids are doing it!)

ETP’s Rachel Sklar reports:

Exciting news for the New York Times: They’ve just inherited a highly-trained ETP operative to run their newest, freakiest blog! Former ETPer Melissa Lafsky and the Steves she calls boss have officially made the jump to the NYT with the Freakonomics blog — the brand-new jewel in the Opinion Section’s bloggy online crown, …

The NYT snatched up Brian from TVNewser a while back, too. Methinks that Arthur has seen the light that from yonder window breaks.

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*** Shafer was writing in January 2005 [e.a.]:

The premature triumphalism of some bloggers indicates that they haven’t paid attention to how Webified journalists have become. They also ignore media history. New media technologies almost never replace old media technologies, they merely force old technologies to adapt and find new ways to connect with their audiences. Radio killed the “special edition,” but newspapers survived. When television dethroned radio as the hearthside infobox and cratered the Hollywood box office, radio became a mobile medium, and Hollywood devoted itself to spectaculars that the tiny TV set couldn’t adequately display. The competitive spiral has continued, with cable TV, VCRs and DVDs, satellite TV and radio broadcasters, and now Internet broadcasters entering the fray. The only extinct mass medium that I can think of is the movie house newsreel.