Shirky: Who needs a paper book when the pages write back?

"Most professions exist because there is a scarce resource that requires ongoing management."

Shirky's notion that professionals become gatekeepers in the old media world is a true one as are his revelations about the growing ranks of amateur journalists aka bloggers. In fact, anyone with a computer becomes publisher and journalist.

I first began working in newspapers around 1990. I was married to a newspaper editor in a small town. There weren't many other jobs to be had. The town newspaper was the source for news of weddings and deaths and police reports. We wrote the basic info that people wanted to read: who what where when and sometimes why. World news was not covered. People really just wanted to know who was in court, church or the cemetery. In those days each county had a 'newspaper of record' and all legal notices were required to be printed. It was really the legal notices that kept that paper afloat.

This is where I first discovered the Apple computer I still lug around. We went from hot wax to desktop publishing in those years (the late 80s, early 90s). The mac has transformed from big to small but it is the same tool for erradicating the lines between the publisher and the published. The reader who wants to write a book someday transforms into the blogger who writes every day. Who needs a paper book when the pages write back? I expect that county newspapers are still the 'record' but also expect for those legal notices to go online before too long. For one thing, those county newspapers will be out of business for lack of readers anytime.