Otterblog

Another year is upon us.
I’ve been away for a few days, and it is always a bit strange to get back into the flow of things. Especially this week. The holiday order sort of assured that this week is pretty quiet. The real start of the year will be next Monday.

In no particular order, I spent the few days away reading (Microtrends, Rome and Jerusalem and The Mother Tongue), watching a few movies (Charlie Wilson’s War and Juno) and visiting friends here and there. In a span of a few short days, we had an epic rain and, this morning, the first time that I felt really cold all season.

This promises to be a really interesting year for the nation in general and journalism in particular. Here’s why: First, the elections. This is the first national election since the bottom fell out of newsrooms. Most staffs are down, and there is going to be pressure from all sides to cover and inform voters on critical issues. And oh, yeah, don’t stop entertaining us about Britney et al. So, for all newspapers, there are going to be hard—but valuable—decisions on how we use our resources. On the other end, the digital gatherers—Yahoo, Google etc.—continue to add original content. The extent to which they wade into politics is yet to be seen, but they have the resources, if they choose, to be players. Second, Fleet Street vs. Wall Street. Newspaper stocks got crushed last year, and in my opinion, most were spared the brutality of restructuring (again) by the fact that they were all in the same boat, so activist shareholders couldn’t single out one company as being the cloud in an otherwise sunny day. My guess is some of that patience will wear thin in 2008. Finally, the economy. Oil is at $100 a barrel. Housing market is generally flat to down. Much more than in the past, our economy—and a whole lot of newspaper revenue—is built on consumer spending.

On the plus side, newspapers are savvier than ever. We’re taking more risks, doing less things just for the sake of tradition, and looking carefully at our role in the community and in the little d democracy we live in. It’s not going to be easy, but it will be worth watching. So stay tuned.