Newspapers Will Survive

Not printed in The Spectator, so posted here instead:

If the Honourable Toby Young will not accept a mere six hundred pounds per month in order to produce five hundred words per week, then the newspaper that he has rebuffed might consider advertising the position in its pages. It would not find itself short of applicants.

Nor does he explain why moving entirely online means that the Christian Science Monitor no longer needs to employ any writers.

But this dedicated blogger, for one, not only discerns no real threat to newspapers and magazines (and they have certainly survived recessions in their time), but would be very sorry if any such threat were being posed.

Invaluable though the Internet is, using it does not have the pleasure of settling down with a newspaper and a cup of tea or a glass of something tolerable. Nor has it the serendipity: reading through a newspaper, one is far more likely to find an item as fascinating as it was wholly unexpected. That can and does happen when using the Internet, but it is not a daily occurrence.