The end of five centuries of print

Peter Preston is facing the facts, print is over. He chooses to mention the "bilious bloggers" as part of the dreadful consequences but this recent writing at least describes the actual situation for print journalists.

Can't see any responses to the comments but then this is not really expected.

The Guardian continues the Observer support for the Murdoch suggestion that content should stop being free. News organisations will change this soon.

What strikes me is how subdued is the news about the Amazon Kindle launched last week with support from the New York Times and other papers. The Guardian writes about the BBC problem as if their websites would suddenly be in profit if the BBC was closed down. The thing is, the Web is global. It would not make much difference except to lower the profile of the UK.

For detail on the Amazon Kindle, turn to the LA Times and a report from last week. Not sure if the LA Times had this in print but I can't find anything till today in the print Guardian or Observer. Today the mention was almost at the end of the story on Murdoch's views.

Some newspaper groups are believed to have had discussions with Amazon about getting their product on to the Kindle reader, a new version of which was launched in the US last week by Jeff Bezos (pictured left). But few believe these first-generation digital readers represent an iPod moment.

As the timescale of print is over five centuries the actual digital book moment may be hard to spot. But the people who pay money for the print versions of newspapers are reasonably expecting accurate reporting of news events. Whatever the opinions of the print journalists.