By: E&P Staff "Dilbert" cartoonist Scott Adams, in his blog today, offered his vision for the future of newspapers.
He thinks they'll be eventually be digital-only, with many people reading them on their cell phones. "And clearly there will be massive amounts of consolidation," wrote Adams. "There won't be 3,000 newspapers online. There might be a dozen. And local news will come from hometown bloggers who self-syndicate to all of the newspapers."
The cartoonist said the problem of reading copy on small cell-phone screens can be solved "with a built-in scroll of 'digital paper' that pulls out to the side, like a sideways Venetian blind, for reading Web pages and documents."
As for comics, Adams wrote that they "would be much funnier if cartoonists didn't have to conform to a G rating as is now the case. With online newspapers, and individual filters for each reader, a kid could subscribe to a newspaper with 'Dilbert' in it, but any off-color strips would be automatically replaced by something more appropriate for that day."
Adams -- who does "Dilbert" for more than 2,000 newspapers via United Media -- did caution that his forecasts don't always come true. "Ten years ago I believed newspapers would last another five years," he wrote.
For Adams' complete blog post,
click here
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