Over on Asian Energy Advisors I’ve been posting for weeks about mainstream media’s coverage of the Masinloc deal.  You can get a taste of it with a few of the links here.

I think print media’s dominance will die rapidly for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, ad revenue will flee to much more lucrative areas.  But second, it’s not like ad revenue was sustaining a content model that was all that great in the first place.

Here’s an example.  Alvin Capino goes to bat today in the Manila Standard for ERC Commissioner Jess Alcordo.

The point of this blog entry is not about Jess Alcordo.  For disclosure purposes, I provided a small amount of consulting advisory assistance to East Asia Power 6-7 years ago and had some limited interaction with Jess Alcordo who was then its CEO. Based on that, and interacting with his employees, and my general involvement in the Philippine energy sector over the years, I can say that nothing ever reached my ears that would conflict with the picture Alvin paints - but, quite frankly, what do I know?

The point is that Alvin doesn’t know Alcordo either (or he hasn’t disclosed it) - so what does he know? He relied on his "sources" in the power sector and the press to relate information about Alcordo. That may be useful - but is it good enough?

I don’t know Alvin.  But I do know people in the power sector.  Alvin’s representations would carry a lot more authority - not only with me, but with any reader - if we knew who was speaking on behalf Alcordo.

Authenticity and integrity (being who you appear to be) is more easily achievable through self-publishing on the web. Plus, there’s the advantage of being able to immediately point (electronically) to the "black propaganda" Alvin alludes to so we can see for ourselves how black the propaganda is (you can find it through my links above). 

In print, because there’s limited space, we have to rely on intermediaries like Alvin.  But as good as these intermediaries might be in print, it’s not as good as hearing directly from the people we want to hear from.  The short-tail of print is at such a disadvantage to the long-tail of the web and the associated conversation (accessible and real-time) that can take place around it - print  simply won’t survive as the dominant form.

Alvin and the other columnists may very well thrive in the newly developing electronic environments - but it’ll be a paradigm shift, just as it will be for print media owners.