Evolution theory

In his latest post, Mark Potts at Recovering Journalist imagines what will happen when the keystone news organization in town gets taken down by parasites, age and ailments. In his vision, a stronger and better adapted news organization rises in its place.

I have no reason to think Potts is wrong and plenty of reasons to think he's right. However, I'm not as hopeful that new news organizations will quickly evolve everywhere that regional dailies die off - wild packs of chain papers continue to make things tough for start-ups.

The missing piece in his narrative is the benevolent force that will be needed to ensure these new news orgs build on the standards set by the best papers that came before. Natural selection is not synonymous with superiority.