The New Yorker on the future of news

A seven-page (online) story by Eric Alterman for The New Yorker provides some historical background, statistical data, examples of how various traditional and online-only media are managing, a distillation of the blogger/journalist controversy, and — of course — a prediction of the future of news:

“And so we are about to enter a fractured, chaotic world of news, characterized by superior community conversation but a decidedly diminished level of first-rate journalism. The transformation of newspapers from enterprises devoted to objective reporting to a cluster of communities, each engaged in its own kind of ‘news’––and each with its own set of ‘truths’ upon which to base debate and discussion––will mean the loss of a single national narrative and agreed-upon set of ‘facts’ by which to conduct our politics.”

In other words, if you could only read one story on the topic, this might be it.