Local News, Without Paper

At this week's South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas, tech thinker Steven Johnson made the “don’t worry, be happy” case. The transition may be rough, he says, but a new “news ecosystem” will emerge on the web, richer than what we’ve known.

Will it? This hour, On Point: Steven Johnson, and New York Times media maven David Carr, on the “news ecosystem” beyond newspapers.

You can join the conversation. If your newspaper goes, how will you get your news? Will a new ecosystem thick with bloggers fill the breach? Could it be better? Tell us what you think.Guests:

Steven Johnson joins us from New York. A tech entrepreneur and best-selling author, he co-founded the pioneering online magazine FEED in 1995 and the community site Plastic in 2001. His latest venture is the hyperlocal news site outside.in. In Austin on Friday, at the big South by Southwest Interactive Festival, his speech “Old Growth Media and the Future of News” got a lot of attention. His latest book is "The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America."

Joining us from Austin is David Carr, columnist for The New York Times covering media, business, and pop culture. He's currently reporting from the South by Southwest Festival. You can keep up with him at the Times' ArtsBeat blog.

And from Seattle, we're joined by Monica Guzman, a reporter at SeattlePI.com covering the culture of technology and the main writer of The Big Blog. She was the first online reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which published its last print edition this week.