Buying bicycles via Bangalore
Posted by
Martin Stabe
on 17 February 2006 at 10:48
Tags: Guardian, Online, Regionals
Echoing earlier comments we reported this week, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has told BBC Radio 4’s “The Message” that newspapers must adapt or die in the face of free online classified advertising web sites and a multitude of online editoral competitors (RealAudio at 12:11).
Rusbridger told the BBC that local newspapers’ basic business model is “under severe challenge” from online classified advertising web sites like Craigslist: “People are waking up to the fact that if you live in Grimsby or Woking, you don’t need to use the local newspaper anymore. You can look for a bicycle or a job or a babysitter as easily via Bangalore or San Francisco as you can through your local paper.”
Editorially there are thousands of people who are “trying to dismember newspapers” by building narrowly-focused but deeply-detailed web sites.
The style of newspapers will also have to change, Rusbridger suggested.
“Younger readers don’t want to be lectured, they want to take part in the discussion,” he said.
