If you read nothing else today, then at least read John Naughton's excellent column in yesterday's Observer Good journalism will thrive, whatever the format. Here's a mere taster:
The newspaper industry, led by Rupert Murdoch, likes to portray the web as a mortal threat to journalism.
The implicit assumption behind this charge is that the only way for journalism to thrive is by squirting its inked output on to processed wood pulp. That was true once, but it isn't now.
Print is just one way of publishing the fruits of journalists' labours; the web is another; iPhone apps are a third. And there may be more to come as the internet continues to work its disruptive magic.
So any intelligent discussion about the future needs to make the distinction between a particular format (print) and the function (journalism) that society needs to nurture. And it's the function that really matters.
He goes on to point out that "it would be a mistake to write off the web as a medium for serious, long-form journalism. There's a vast quantity of high-quality narrative journalism on it."
What's more. People like reading it. He quotes the editor of the New York Times magazine who observed recently: "Contrary to conventional wisdom it's our longest pieces that attract the most online traffic".
Indeed, one long piece that I bet got a lot of hits was the article about phone-hacking by Murdoch's newspaper, the News of the World.
Naughton concludes by offering practical advice on how to save lengthy pieces in order to read them when you have the time. Excellent stuff.
