Archives for 18 April 2008
A Modest Online-Revenue Proposal For Newspapers
By Josh Barsch
Back in the VHS vs. Beta video-format wars of the 1980’s, my family put all its ill-fated chips on Beta. More recently, I went all in with an HD-DVD player instead of Blu-Ray, and about four seconds after I did, Toshiba threw in the towel and stopped supporting HD-DVDs. I also thought Ryan Leaf would make a better NFL quarterback than Peyton Manning, and argued with my childhood friends that Dominique Wilkins would accomplish more in the NBA than that Michael Jordan guy ever would.
In short, I have a long history of taking the road less traveled — the one that ends up dead-ending off a cliff. But one of the rare times when I came to a crossroads and actually made the right call was when I ditched my first love, newspapering, in favor of an Internet career. It was 1999 when I left the University of Missouri’s graduate program, master’s in hand, with a variety of prospects. Could’ve gone to a newspaper, magazine, TV station, even a radio station — but I chose the Web. For once in my life, it seems, I heard the train coming before it ran over me.
These choices and the evaluation of their …
Josh Barsch founded StraightForward Media in 2001 after a brief career in print journalism. He now lives in the sticks of western South Dakota with his wife Christina, daughter Mia, son Ezra, two dogs Velvet & Holly, and cat Chanceux, all of whom he loves dearly. And four nameless hermit crabs, for whom he feels nothing.