In his blog at The New York Times, John Markoff reports about a personal interview with Steve Jobs:
Today he (Steve Jobs) had a wide range of observations on the industry, including the Amazon Kindle book reader, which he said would go nowhere largely because Americans have stopped reading.
“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said.
“Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year.
The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”
Not reading at all or not reading books?
Reading this blog, you are reading.
Reading John Markoff’s blog, I am reading.
Reading on the iPhone screen, you and I are reading.
Reading on the MacBook Air screen is reading.
So, the message here is clear to me:
We need more and better reporting and editing than ever.
It’s not that we don’t read.
It’s that we don’t have time to read.
And we will only read information caviar.
Newspapers, magazines, online websites must become “information refineries”
(Picture by Alice Marie/Flickr)