Newspapers are failing, and my friend and advisor Alan Webber knows why: the problem isn’t technology, shifting business models, the rise of social networks or all the other excuses newspaper executives like to talk about. The problem is lousy products.

From Alan’s Nov. 13, 2006 post:

What’s happened, I think, is that newspapers have stopped asking the right questions. They’ve stopped provoking public conversation about the great issues of our time. They’ve stopped seeing themselves as provocateurs of public discourse. … Why do movies, the Web, TV, get to have all the fun? Ask all the good questions? Carry all the inspirational, challenging, provocative answers?

Good questions.

Alan was the founder of Fast Company magazine.

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Diplomats and various internet influentials talked about internet censorship, diversity and access at a UN-sponsored gathering in Athens this week.

Do you care? Do your usual media providers keep you up-to-date on who’s controlling the internet and what they’d like to do with it?

Given the emerging ubiquity and necessity of digital communications, I continue to marvel at the “other world” nature of high-level discussions about how the internet is operated.

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