Last year, I wrote about my former life as a newspaper employee and what I think about the hurting business. A lot has changed since then, with several newspapers shutting down operations (or threatening to), including the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and others laying off even more employees as revenues continue to plummet.
According to an article this week in The New York Times, “Ad revenue, the industry’s lifeblood, has dropped about 25% in the last two years (by comparison, automotive revenue for Detroit’s Big Three fell about 15% during the same period, although it has accelerated recently), and that slide, accelerated by the recession, shows no sign of leveling off in 2009.
“Web sites like Craigslist have been to classified ads what the internal combustion engine was to horse-drawn buggies. The stock prices of most newspaper publishers have dropped more than 90 percent from their peaks.
“Daily print circulation has dropped from a peak of 62 million two decades ago to around 49 million, and online readership has risen faster, to almost 75 million Americans and 3.7 billion page views in January, according to Nielsen Online.”
Several plans have been proposed to save newspapers, but many of them seem to have little chance of actually working out. Here’s why:
1.) One plan calls for college professors to write newspaper articles for free, because, as the plan’s proponent put it, “Most professors aren’t paid for what they write now.” But, as one critic of this plan pointed out, reporting a news story is a tricky business that involves incredible detail and lots of fact checking–something professors might not have the time or desire to do. In addition, I’m pretty sure this would violate some labor laws, and while newspapers often offer unpaid internships (you’re getting paid in experience!), this doesn’t really feel like the same thing.
2.) Some media organizations have floated the idea of getting people to buy a special device that they can read the newspaper on (or as one organization has it, spitting out pages of news stories in readers’ homes), but this seems like a real stretch. First, I’m pretty sure this is what a computer (or advanced mobile phone) already does. Every day, I (and millions of others) get on the Internet and read The New York Times and if I really like something enough to keep, I can print it out (keep in mind that this usually only happens with recipes). Also, I’m not sure if the bigwigs in the newspaper industry have noticed, but we’re in a recession–getting someone to buy yet another device probably isn’t going to go over very well.
3.) Others have suggested that perhaps it’s personalization that’s missing from the newspaper industry and have touted ideas to let readers choose the sections they want to receive and read. The problem is that this concept already exists all over the Internet. Readers can set up RSS feeds, bookmark Web sites, use iPhone applications and other Web aggregation tools to help them find the news they want. There’s no need to slog through pages of fashion news if you want sports and readers are already savvy on how to skip the information they don’t want.
But one plan has been proposed that may have legs …
So what will save newspapers?
Well, maybe nothing. But even if every newspaper in the U.S. shut down, we’d still need, and want, news and information. The question then becomes, what sustainable business model exists that will allow the news-gathering and news-delivering business to continue?
One of the major problems the industry faces is that people have gotten used to getting all the information they want for free. The entire Sunday New York Times can be found on the newspaper’s Web site at no cost, while buying it at the newsstand will cost you $4 (around where the stock has been trading lately) and a dollar more outside the New York metropolitan area. Unfortunately, newspapers have traditionally valued their physical product, rather than the information the product contains.
So really what needs to change is peoples’ perceptions that the information newspapers provide is valuable and worth paying for. And newspapers need to embrace the fact that their future is online and figure out a way to sustain themselves with that in mind.
If newspapers went solely online and there were no print operations to prop up, news could cost a fraction of what it does now and the burden of the cost could be shifted from the advertisers (which is how newspapers make money now) to readers. Printing and distribution costs are a major reason that newspapers demand high prices from subscribers and advertisers, but if they were eliminated, the information could be sold at a more palatable price. This, of course, raises the question: what will happen to the people who work in the newspaper presses and the employees who won’t be needed once the newspaper downsizes to be solely online? Well, I don’t have an answer for that, except that it may be a reality that newspaper publishers need to face before it’s too late.
The best plan I’ve heard on how to save the news business was written about in Time magazine by Walter Isaacson, who proposed a sort of micro-payment method for receiving news stories. Readers could pay by the month, by the week, by the issue or even by the story in a sort of iTunes-like model. If news stories were cheap enough and it was easy enough to pay for them, I’ll bet most people wouldn’t mind shelling out a dime or quarter to access important information.
Whatever the solution, I know I’ll be sad to see print newspapers go the way of the dodo bird. Those that can learn to adapt and change, however, could prosper in the future as people continue to benefit from their news-gathering prowess. Behind almost every TV news report or blog entry is a well-reported story written by a professional journalist who works for a newspaper. What we need to do now is separate the idea that those journalists work for newspapers–which is merely the method of delivery–and allow their work to flourish in whatever medium people choose to get their news. The key is getting people to treat news stories and the information newspapers provide as a privilege, not a right.
[Side Note: Some of my friends (ironically, most have worked in the newspaper industry) have already begun to prepare for a world with no newspapers. During a camping trip last year, they chose to light a fire with birch bark instead of newspaper, thus preparing for the post-newspaper world.]
Do you read a newspaper every day–online or in print? What would make you pay for news content online? What will save the newspaper business?
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16 responses so far ↓
1 Can Newspapers be Saved? | Futures Trading Info // Mar 14, 2009 at 12:00 pm
[...] See the original post: Can Newspapers be Saved? [...]
2 Herb Shiroff // Mar 14, 2009 at 5:12 pm
why not have congress impose a sales tax on search engine advertising revenue designed to subsidize the newspaper industry. tax revenues would be parcelled out according to circulation. google, yahoo and microsoft can surely aford this, and a vital american industry would survive.
3 Tom // Mar 14, 2009 at 6:27 pm
I don’t mean this to be crass or inappropriate, but I read a print newspaper every day – in the toilet. That is not an editorial comment on the quality of the paper – it’s just a great time and place to be alone and read. It also speaks to the ideas of reading news on line – it’s really hard to roll up a laptop and haul it into the men’s room.
4 Tom // Mar 14, 2009 at 7:07 pm
No, I would not pay for online content, but then I buy a daily newspaper. Yes, I realize I am a dinosaur, but I would rather pay $4.00 for a whole Sunday paper than be nickled and dimed to death per article. My cost is set. I realize too, that I will have to change, probably very soon. : (
5 john dealy // Mar 14, 2009 at 10:08 pm
Your story somewhat misses the strategy planning point of the newspaper business–if ads paid for the content and the newspaper charge paid for the distribution, the distribution is now very low cost (the Web) so the issue is how to move the ads to the Online edition–Google makes a fortune on Online ads because it found innovative ways to present, charge and measure their effectiveness–that is the challenge for the newspaper owners–who until now have simply been order takers based on circulation numbers–the revamping needed is to develop marketing approaches for the new medium–just as Cabot does–or it could not survive against all the free investment advice available. There is no entitlement in business, just the opportunity to compete–with the race going to the agile and innovative.
6 Dick McLaughlin // Mar 15, 2009 at 12:55 am
You are missing the main reason newspapers are failing; they are not a reliable source of honest information. The majority of todays journalists do not verify their facts. Most of the so called news today is an opinion with a definite liberal slant. Virtually all of the media, print & voice, was rooting for Obama to win the election. The sad thing is the media doesn’t think they are biased. By the time they wake up and look in the mirror they will be out of business.
7 Clem Grote // Mar 15, 2009 at 6:53 am
The only newspaper I buy is the Wall St. Journal. Why? I tend to believe it mostly reports the news rather than make the news. The NYTimes is a good expample of the opposite as is our local paper the Milwaukee Journal. Both are shills for the Liberal Media and I will not shed a tear at their demise.
8 Ernest from Palm Coast FL // Mar 15, 2009 at 8:10 am
I no longer read newspapers and very seldom magazines. I get all the news and entertainment I want from TV (Fox for news) and the Internet. I used to subscribe to Readers Digest. I get a couple magazines from veterans organizations but hardly read those. Catalogs are no more. We get some flyers from mail order houses, and we get a free Pennysaver newspaper delivered to our driveway each week which we find helpful.
Personally I think newsprint media will eventually die out.
What will the bums in the park do when they don’t have newspapers to cover up with in cold weather? What will pet owners use for their birdcages and toilet training? What will fishmongers use for wrapping? No more wrapping a brick in newspaper for bedwarmers or doorstops. What will children use to spread out on the kitchen table for building their school projects or model airplanes? What will housewifes use to cover the kitchen table when operating on a hogshead when making heads cheese or scrapple? Whole lifestyles will be disrupted.
9 Dave Wright // Mar 15, 2009 at 9:23 am
I for one will not mourn the loss of the print media.
They have served a purpose, but that purpose is now being better served by other news media.
I agree that we must have some method of renumerating reporters who will do an in-depth analysis of whatever news story is currently being disseminated, but we should be able to find some less environmentally devastating method of doing this.
I live in Canada. I have witnessed first hand the environmental disaster that is paper making. From my home town in Southern Ontario, through to our northern areas where the boreal forests are destroyed, and our waterways are poisoned.
I have also found that nearly all news media no longer seem to have the ability of remembering how the issues that are being reported evolved. The back story no longer matters. A quick and easy handle on the issue at hand seems to be preferred over in depth analysis, and a thorough understanding of the complexities of the story at hand.
Stereotypical attitudes, and cookie cutter sound bites have become the norm.
I much prefer the net. There is so much garbage to sift through, but careful reading, and a healthy scepticism seem to do the trick.
10 Ken Fees // Mar 15, 2009 at 10:17 am
As a kid in the public school system in Des Moines, Iowa, one of the things I”m most grateful for is a grade school teacher who made us read and analyze the newspaper. At that time, it was the Des Moines Register, and it was full of wonder to a young boy eager to learn about the world.
That schoolwork helped me form a habit of reading, both newspapers and books, that has served me well in the forty plus years since. I still read daily newspapers, including financial dailies, and enjoy them.
Your article is right on the money. The press is such an important part of who we are in this country that we can’t live without them. We must find a way to help them become more economically viable.
I have only one negative comment, and it is that some of this monetary disaster is the result of the merging of all these papers to the point that most of our news is no longer local. Like politics, all news is local, once you get past the national scope.
11 Roy Orem // Mar 15, 2009 at 12:35 pm
In order to change the perception of new and newspapers.
Maybe the news has to be more conscious of the system that protects and allows their industry to be. The freedom of speech we enjoy here and how we obtained and maintain this privilege should be more honored and respected. This
would represent a change in many folks perception of the news industry as a whole.
An attitude change toward , championing those that discredit our nation and
its constitution.
Now that we on the internet can compare stories from different outlets including foreign sources,
we are better able to get a better handle on stories and just how much fact or editorial each outlet offers.
Mainstream American journalism needs to more critical of people that would take away or limit their rights and thereby their industry, than the folks trying to preserve it.
ROO
12 Andre Spina // Mar 15, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Hi,
A mental note I made recently was that if I had a big high definition screen say 40″ or more that I could use to read the online newspapers I am subscribed to I would never buy another paper paper.
I currently use my laptop and find only two major inconveniences.
I can’t see and read the whole page at once, and its not possible to print or selectively save information as desired; as issued.
For portability, as internet becomes more and more portable, its going to be another nail in the coffin for the printed version of newspapers.
My conclusion is that advertizing can remain in the current format, and the cost savings of actually printing the paper can be passed on to subscribers.
13 D Roth // Mar 15, 2009 at 1:55 pm
I read the newspaper in print for four reasons…
The news, captions (pictures, editorials, etc. , ads (junk, employment, cars, etc), and “games” (cross word, sudoko, etc.)
How can I cut out articles, ads, games, and stuff from an online site when I’m on a bus, train, or simply outside in my back yard enjoying a cup of coffee?
Please let us support printed materials. I do recycle.
14 H. Lorberbaum // Mar 15, 2009 at 8:11 pm
I also see the handwriting on the wall. Newspapers will soon be extinct. For an internet financing model, bill advertisers for ‘hits’ ala Google. It is my understanding that reporting is substantially performed by reporters. They go to the scene of action, school board meetings, fires, congressional hearings and that good stuff we call news. When you are my age even obituaries are worth a leisurely stop. The local news is important to most of us. After all, gossip is always salable. The dumbing down of our youth (anyone under 60) is one of the causes of our national indifferance to high quality reporting.
15 elyse // Mar 16, 2009 at 8:54 am
Thanks to everyone who commented here–your ideas about the future of the news business have really got me thinking. Some of the responses will probably end up in this weekend’s Cabot Wealth Advisory. http://www.cabot.net/info/cwa/cwaji00.aspx Thanks again for your insights!
16 Mark Beverage // Mar 21, 2009 at 1:23 am
Newspapers will hae t go online to survive.
Then they need to make all the news available and as a reader chooses stories/articles over time their servers would learn what types of stories interest this reader and present them as a front page.
Amazon.com does this with transactions on their site as do many others. All other news would still be available, a good search capability would be necessary.
I worked at a paper for many years so I know that they have many more stories from the wire services than they actually print every day. In this kind of setup they will need access to even more if they want to charge for a subscription. There might even be some value in pulling together what is now free on the web, to have it all in one place so the reader doesn’t do a lot of searching for it.
I think it will be difficult to get people to pay much so advertising will probably always play a part.
Store coupons coild be redeemed by giving out a code when the coupon was clicked on or the stores could issue cards that that have a number, you type that number into a box on the coupon and the store will give you the discount when you hand them your card.
I have my computer connected to a large screen TV so I can sit on the couch and read the Cabot Market letter but a universal “open source” portable reader would be nice to sit on the porch and read
with.
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