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Jan 7, 2009

Eric Schmidt and the newspapers

Adam Lashinsky at CNNmoney.com brings a fascinating interview with Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google.

Highlights include:
But you do believe it's important that newspapers survive?

Not only do we believe that, but I've been outspoken about it because I want everyone to get that. The fundamental question you're asking is why does Google not write large checks to newspapers? We're careful at Google with our money. We write large checks when we have a great strategy. And we don't yet have that strategy.


and this:

Maybe their time (the newspapers) has just come and gone?

No. They don't have a problem of demand for their product, the news. People love the news. They love reading, discussing it, adding to it, annotating it. The Internet has made the news more accessible. There's a problem with advertising, classifieds and the cost itself of a newspaper: physical printing, delivery and so on. And so the business model gets squeezed.

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