Tea and the future of print media with Jay Rosen

Apple’s newest gadget – the iPad, was unveiled on Jan. 27. The hype and hope surrounding this latest Apple product was infectious to say the least.

Everyone from tech-savvy fanatics to die-hard advocates of traditional print media were cheerleaders at the iPad’s introduction into the mediascape.

However, when Jay Rosen sat down with The Economist for tea, and to discuss the glorified potential of this newest technology, he seemed relatively immune to the buzz.



Rosen is a journalism professor at New York University (NYU). As well, he is a highly sought-after blogger and media critic whose opinion is not taken lightly.

As Rosen unpacked and subsequently debunked the hype and hope of iPad romanticism during his interview, it became very clear very quickly that perhaps too much greatness was expected of this medium.

This defeatist sentiment was only reiterated as Rosen offered his take on the burning question on the mind of every journalist and publisher: Will the iPad save the ailing print media industry that is desperate for a payday?

Interestingly, Rosen doesn’t seem to think so.

But why?

Well, according to Rosen, a significant amount of the iPad’s success “depends on the network of people who become the users.” Essentially, the user has to like it.

In regards to this, Rosen is unsure of how the tech-savvy masses, who have blossomed in their active role in modern social media, will react to the iPad’s old school ‘sit back, relax and enjoy the media’ feel.

Moreover, today, user-generated content ranks among the most popular content on the web. As well, along with user-generated content comes: user-generated filtering, user-generated organization, user-generated distribution and user-generated commentary. It is clear that internet users are making use of the power granted by social media.

Furthermore, the iPad is without a camera and videotaping capabilities, and only equipped with a barely workable keyboard. Thus, this ‘new’ technology is very unlike the Web 2.0 world we’ve grown accustomed to.

For this reason, Rosen believes that the iPad “is taking us back in web time to the read-only web.” He said that this newest tablet is “restoring people to the days when they were just the audience… when they were just the consumers of content.”

While the traditional print and publishing media are enthralled to “bring back the experience of sitting back with the media and enjoying the wonderful productions,” one must question whether this logic is outdated and if the media industry is out of touch with consumers.

Ultimately, Rosen is skeptical of whether the masses will respond positively to their demotion to merely a passive audience member.

What it comes down to is that the media is hoping the iPad, which has the capacity to charge users for content, will help the floundering traditional print media corporations - who have witnessed the internet take a sizable bite out of their profits.

However, with all the free content online, Rosen said that the media should concern itself with having the highest quality of content that is of value to its readers, rather than the presentation of that content - on e-readers, the Kindle, or the iPad.

According to Rosen, the media resorts to “magical thinking, deliverance by new devices, and business models” because “actually producing high quality content is a lot harder.”