We’ve all heard that newspapers—particularly the megalithic ones like New York Times and Gannett—are being strangled by the massive free information explosion on the internet. Social networking, blogs and blog-like things are likened to warm-blooded mammals, and USA Today is presented as the lumbering dinosaur only now becoming aware of its imminent extinction.
And there’s no shortage of evidence to back this up. Layoffs seem to be happening daily in newspapers across the country. Advertising income is shrinking at frighteningly sharp rates. Classified ads are all but dead thanks to things like Craigslist. The impact on print media is very real.
Today (Nov. 13), the American Press Institute (API) is holding an invitation-only, closed-door “summit conference” where 50 of the CEO-level newspaper execs will try to brainstorm their way out of the almost-certain implosion of the industry. Even with all their combined experience, talent and money, the outlook is grim. It is very likely that newspapers, at least in the sense we think of them today, are on the way out.
Interestingly, smaller papers (like the Mountain Xpress) are actually in a good position to make a relatively smooth transition to being online-oriented newspapers. After all, locally owned community papers are generating content you really can’t get anywhere else, they tend to have more community support, they have smaller staffs that can transition more easily to new formats and they can get by with a smaller profit margin. All of us who visit the site—and the very clver ones who read the forums—probably take this for granted.
But the end seems to be coming sooner than anyone expected, largely due to the cracks in the stock and credit markets, making an already faltering industry seem like a moronic investment. It’s starting to look like the big kids are really about to start keeling over any day now.
Which brings me to my point: Do you think print journalism is on the verge of dying? And if so, how can online journalism—specifically local publications like Xpress—make the most of the void in the food chain? More bloggers? More videos and podcasts?
You’re a savvy crowd, so I thought I’d open it up to discussion.
While the major dailies—particularly the chains—are, like you say, reeling, it may be the publicly-traded ones that go into a rapid tailspin. The failure of confidence on Wall Street could be the death blow to ailing—but not failing—companies. Sure, they’re experiencing loss of income and readership—but those are wake-up calls, not death blows.
Watch the family-owned papers, and those NOT publicly traded, and I think we’ll see efforts to evolve, without the sense of the Titanic after it hit the iceberg.
However, when Gannett announces huge upcoming personnel cuts (as they recently did), and its stock only rises briefly before tumbling to even lower levels (as it just did), that approaches cataclysmic.
The moral may be that if you rely on Wall Street to determine your value (and in turn your purpose), you’ve put your confidence in a valueless system—and you wind up being the little piggy who went wee-wee all the home.
Perhaps a problem with the major dailies is that they are trying to offer too much - world news, local news, human interest, advice from garden to music, small and large events and obits and more - they’re still broadcasting and cutting back doesn’t seem to mean cutting content but the quality of that one-size-fits-all content.
I agree with Steve that it’s the smaller (and perhaps non-daily) more adjustable narrowcasters that can perhaps hybridize their content - mixing web-reader interaction and allowing the group to make some of the analysis. In those cases it will be those newsprint media that can successfully balance attracting quality and verbose reader/blogger-types with whatever the heck a sustainable advertising model is going to be, that will prosper.
From American Journal Review article By Philip Meyer,
The significance of craigslist is not just that it uses the Internet but that it empowers public-spirited motivation. [Craig] Newmark is what business school people call a “bad competitor” because he appears more interested in serving society than making money.
He does make money by charging certain kinds of users, but the bulk of his service is free. He is like Henry Ford who, after introducing the Model T, lowered prices, increased wages and concentrated on market share rather than maximizing profit. When challenged by shareholders unhappy that their dividends weren’t higher, he replied that they should view his company as “an instrument of service rather than as a machine for making money.”
Craigslist and more specialized online classified ad sites could not have appeared at a worse time for newspapers, which were becoming increasingly dependent on classified advertising. In keeping with the broad trend toward specialization, classified ads moved from 18 percent of newspaper advertising revenue in 1950 to 40 percent in 2000.
The lesson to take away from craigslist is that we should be prepared to be surprised yet again. There are other Craig Newmarks out there, waiting for their hour. Some will be on the news-editorial side, figuring out new, better and cheaper ways to do what newspapers have traditionally done. Newspapers can try to beat them to the good ideas, but, as Harvard’s Clayton Christensen has noted, the very qualities that made companies succeed can be disabling when applied to disruptive innovation. Successful disruption requires risk taking and fresh thinking.
For up-to-date news and opinion on the general topic, Steve Shanafelt suggests we visit regularly Paul Gillin’s blog, newspaper death watch.
Here’s Gillin’s note on Jeff Jarvis (who Steve mentioned):
“Perhaps the newspaper executives who are meeting behind closed doors in Reston, Va. this week will bandy about this idea. Or perhaps not. Jeff Jarvis nails it with this commentary on the hush-hush affair: “These are the very same proprietors of the newspaper industry’s decline. What they need is not the same old executives but new people with new ideas,” he opines. If Jarvis was running the event, “I’d fly in people from Google and a bunch of successful tech companies as well as innovators and entrepreneurs in news and let them do all the talking.” Not a bad idea. Read the comments on his post.”
I see the potential “death” of several print media sources no differently than the death of many other businesses that adopted the “maximize profit and executive compensation at all costs” model of the last few decades. Research, innovation, and risk (all cost short term money) are at all time lows in our nation as a result. Also the reduced purchasing power of the consumer base can no longer support both print media and digital high bandwidth access. For most a choice must be made and the less relevant/innovative is the one to go.
I had no idea that the NYT was doing so badly. A $400 million debt that has to be paid in six months by a company with less than $46 million on hand sure sounds pretty bad. I wonder if they’ll start selling off their papers, or if they’ll just shut them down entirely?
Instead of cueing the sad violins or some death march, perhaps we need a little rousing John Phillip Sousa (yes, I played and marched in high-school band). Something rousing and brazen, with a sparkling piccolo solo, like “Stars and Stripes Forever.”
So we’ve got a crisis, now what? Whatcha gonna do?
Some new-agers will mistranslate the Chinese character for crisis (weiji) as containing both the concepts of “danger” and “opportunity.” Chinese-language scholar Victor Mair counters that the Chinese “crisis” is just as serious an affair as it is in English and has little of the “positive juncture” implied by “opportunity.” It’s instead a time to be wary, a crucial point, a dangerous juncture. It’s a time to pick a new path for survival—or perish.
What’s the response of the top 50 newsprint CEO’s? To cluster together in a closed room? Makes me think of the ol’ ostrich with his head in the sand.
The time for talk is done. It’s time to cast about, seek the new direction and go there. Yes, the path is doubly dangerous because we’re caught between the decline of print advertising and the as-yet unfulfilled promise of online revenue. We’re caught in a time when long-time journalists are struggling to maintain their high standards, yet do double- and triple-duty as multimedia experts who have the confidence, wit and quick-response abilities to thrive in a world of blogging, citizen journalism, forums and twittering. By the time they figure out how to use Twitter, the latest new thing has already moved in.
I say: How do we draw energy from that? How do we embrace the momentum? The ship is listing, and our feet are soaked. Hop onto the speedboat that’s flashing by, then hang on. We’ve don’t have much time to get our sea legs.
At the moment, I’m talking to myself. I fear my last post was too much metaphor and too little substance.
Gary Hooks, former USA Today dude, says, “The Internet is held out as everything from villain to savior. In reality, the Internet is just a delivery platform. Albeit a potentially engaging and dynamic platform to enhance a reader’s experience, but a delivery platform nonetheless. The same as print is a delivery platform. Neither would be of much value without content. And for newspapers, whether delivered by print or digitally, the content starts with the journalism, the original reporting that makes sense of the day’s events and informs the citizenry.”
For some time, I’ve felt that content is the answer. People don’t want simply bells and whistles. Nor do they want their information delivered in the same old ways. They still crave information. Look at the deluge all around us.
Within the framework of journalism’s mission of truth, how do we deliver that information, and still fund the mechanisms by which we deliver it? How do we pay our bills?
I found your posts very enjoyable and well written.
I don’t think anyone will recognize the face of the new media untill it already dominates internet “news” delivery. Like many recent staples of information and communication it will likely “come out of nowhere” not from the media establishment. What will it look like? I have no idea.
Of course the internet has played a huge role, but so did radio, tv, cable, digital radio options ....
I look at the way I get my news now ...
I start my day with a back and forth from wncw and bbc radio all inernet streaming audio .... I also check out the lead stories on msn home page… then I might hit headline news on my way out the door .... in the car I go between sportscenter news and BBC on xmradio ..... maybe just maybe I will pick up the ny times daily on tuesday for the science section and the puzzle, but not for the news typically ... i still get nyt sunday, but at 8 dollars I am not sure it is worth it ....
For some time, I’ve felt that content is the answer. People don’t want simply bells and whistles. Nor do they want their information delivered in the same old ways. They still crave information. Look at the deluge all around us.
I agree with most everything you’ve said and have wondered about the whole content issue. More often when i listen to how people got the information they’re re-spouting it is that they have been listening to media sources that give support to what they already believe, not objective content. More than information or the process of knowing, people - at least Americans - want proof that they’re right.
I think it starts early. School is our first institutionalized source of information and tends to promote giving the teacher what s/he outlines rather than learn to think for ourselves. So we feel this way or that way, form opinions and then look for the foundation to prove our points.
I worry that the speedboat you speak of zipping by the sinking ship (i liked your analogies BTW) is itself the zipping up of information, of bumper-stickering of data. That the speedboat is the message.
We get the NYT on the weekends but the hardcopy goes right in the trash because we can see every NYT issue since 1840-something online as part of our subscription. They seem to know they are in trouble:
So my question is ... how does Mountain Xpress survive? We are, as Fobes says, not publicly owned. Small. Self-contained. But not immune to the current economic woes, nor the overall problems facing newspapers around the world, such as higher printing costs. We’ve always been a free paper at newstands and online, relying on ad revenue (and a few other sources) for sustaining us. How do we continue to pursue our mission? Do we sooner rather than later give up on a print version of the paper? Do we gradually increase online-only content? How do we increase online revenues?
As for speedboats ... the dissemination of information has become so rapid, so global. It’s a daunting task to sort through it, separating the wheat from the chaff, the music from the static. How do you grab the right line from the right speedboat? Then send out your own?
On the other hand, I’m finding inspiration from the higher level of reader interaction that now exists. Such as these forums, for instance. Hmm. More coffee!
Don’t consign newspapers to buggy whip status just yet.
There will always be incontinent pets to train and people who are moving still can’t wrap their dishes up in the internet. Think of the papiér maché industry!
