If you’re not a newspaper reader or if you read the paper online, it might seem like the life-threatening problems facing the nation’s newspapers have no impact on you.
David Carr, a media reporter at The New York Times, wrote an excellent story in Tuesday’s paper (yes, it’s online too) that explores and explains the problems newspapers are having as readership declines, ad pages slip and desperate cost-cutting is resulting in cuts in newsroom staffing. Carr makes a good case showing why the newspapers’ problems will impact our lives in a very real way. It’s a lot more than just a preference for getting news as ink on paper or on a computer, Blackberry or iPhone screen.
We’re also seeing the world’s largest and, possibly, most trusted newsgathering organization …. the Associated Press …. under fire and possibly fighting for its wellbeing as many member newspapers threaten to drop their AP membership to trim costs. The AP not only provides newspapers with news content, but it also feeds news to all the broadcast networks, most local TV and radio stations and many online news and information sites.
CNN is about to try to woo newspapers with a newswire service it hopes to offer, which may place further pressure on the AP.
But why should we care about newspapers when there are so many other places to get the news?
Newspapers, except for The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and, to a degree, The New York Times, are local. Daily newspapers, with their locally-based reporters, do a crucial public service by being our eyes and ears in thousands of city halls, police departments and state houses, in school board meetings and in local courts. Fully-staffed newspapers can be all the places most of us can’t, reporting, asking questions and probing beneath the surface. Newspaper reporters, without the pressure to get something online virtually as soon as it happens, have the luxury of digging deeper, searching for more background, getting and filtering comments from involved parties. The resulting stories often do much more than report facts. They give us a perspective to help us better understand the day’s events. As David Carr writes, it’s the reporter whose probing eyes help keep our elected officials honest (or as honest as possible).
So when we read of a 40 percent cut in the newsroom staff at The Star Ledger in Newark and similar cuts in newsrooms at Gannett, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe and many others, it should be clear that the newspapers’ problems become ours as well.
As Carr explains, it’s not as simple as newspapers selling their growing readership online to offset their shrinking readership in print. Print pages bring in a lot more revenue than banners, clicks and other online ads. It’s not even close– so far.
Like everyone on the web, newspapers are trying to figure out how to best monetize their sites. Advertisers and their agencies are also trying to find some formula they can feel comfortable with, be it click-throughs, impressions, ROI.
I don’t have the answer. I wish I did, because aside from enjoying reading newspapers in print, I understand and value the role they play in our society. Whether their content is delivered on paper or online is rapidly becoming a non-issue. Just keeping them alive and functioning as viable news organizations has become THE issue.
David,
You have written beautifully about a very important topic and I fear that my thoughts on the subject are frivolous.
When newspaper reporters gave up fiercely tracking news that was unpopular with the current administration, it wasn’t long before bloggers and cable TV newshounds filled the void.
And some of the newspapers don’t make it easy for readers who want to buy copies to find them. Took a US Air shuttle to Washington DC at 8 a.m. last week. Didn’t pass one newsstand at the air terminal but there were hundreds of free copies of The Wall Street Journal and The Economist and none of The New York Times. On my return to New York I saw that there were copies at the Delta terminal.
Can’t read what you can’t buy. In Dutchess County, NY, I have a hard time finding a Sunday New York Times, so few are distributed there anymore. And a Long Island, NY commuter friend tells me he can’t buy a Times at 7 a.m. at the local newspaper store by the RR station. They say their copies haven’t been delivered.
And don’t you think that children, brought up around adults who read papers, will tend to be caught up by the habit?
Jeanne, distribution is a part of the problem when it comes to print versions of newspapers. You ask about young people following their parents’ example of reading a paper. My kids read the paper online and rarely buy a printed copy. And, from what David Carr says in The Times story, papers don’t make even close to the amount they get for print ads when advertisers take online ads. That’s one of the issues publishers need to figure out, as more readers leave print for online. An ad that reaches 100,000 readers online brings in substantially less in ad revenue than a page reaching 100,000 readers in print. A key question is — do both methods of advertisinmg have equal impact?
Without the Fourth Estate as a watchdog, there are no trained professionals to guard against government mal- and misfeasance or economic power gone amuck.
Journalists aren’t perfect and fell down on the job regarding Iraq. However, if we didn’t see this economic crisis coming, it wasn’t the fault of the media, which covered stock over-valuation, over-borrowing and under-saving, the budget deficit and the housing crisis long before government became interested.
Bloggers don’t fill the void because they just won’t have access to the facts or the faults or the power-mongers if the trained media disappears.
Good post, David.
David,
Confession: My husband reads his news exclusively online as well.
As for online ads, who sees–and keeps–them? If something pops up in my face, I spend its screen time on my computer looking for the X delete symbol and can’t tell you what any advert was about. How much will someone pay for this?
Lewis: Hopefully soon, newspaper reporters will be paid to write online news and their numbers again will swell. Meanwhile, while the industry gurus figure out how to be profitable and serve their customers, reporters may need to use their creative and irreplaceable skills so as not to lose the expertise–in blogs, perhaps?
Jeanne –
As a working journalist who is trying to work for print and for online and learn video, I am very concerned about the future of newspapers.
Newspaper reporters will not be hired to write online news unless online ads bring in more revenues or people become willing to pay subscription fees for online content, unless some other new business model is found.
As a practical matter, when can reporters and editors have time for daily life when they’re working 40 hours a week or more, plus learning new skills or blogging in their “spare” time? Going to evening meetings, keeping up with laundry and household tasks, spending scant time with spouses or family members and learning new media isn’t easy. Since wages have been stagnant, it has been hard for reporters to come up with extra cash for computers, Internet service, other digital equipment and software to learn new skills at home. My company provides training and is trying to serve a variety of readers, but no one has yet come up with a way make news provide more revenue or for government to downsize so fewer reporters are needed.
Good point, Barbara. Newspapers — and news media in general — must develop a new model that generates enough revenue to pay a full reporting staff. With so much offered free online, though, I’m not sure where the revenue will come from. Hopefully someone will figure it out before newspapers have disappeared.
Barbara,
Getting caught in an industry’s gear shift hurts and is scary not only for the people involved, but for those who depend on them–and that’s not only their families. Apart from people who thrive on and relish reading news in print, the public relations industry isn’t thrilled at what’s happening to print media–newspapers or magazines.
The epidemic of change has affected millions, no doubt leading to the mass exit of formerly loyal supporters of your newspaper, causing angst for you and your colleagues and many of my friends.
Hadn’t toured manufacturing plants for a while when last year, I visited a flooring manufacturer’s facility. You read about it but seeing the difference was a shock. The plant floors were empty. One person stood or sat by a computer and two people were placed at two or three key intervals to check that there were no errors in the flooring as it rolled by. I wondered how all the other workers were making a living in this small southern town. At least this plant was in the US. Within six months to a year, those cut from the payroll will no longer be up to speed on the technology.
A friend’s 40-something year old son, downsized last year from a desk job in the insurance industry where he’d worked since college, is taking courses to become a math and science teacher.
David, who wrote this piece and maintains an excellent blog, “my 2 cents,” also maintains a full complement of clients in his thriving PR agency. Some of my clients are introducing new programs and initiatives with reduced staff. They do this by adding to their work hours, though not to their paychecks.
None of this makes you or anyone else feel better. Saying you’ll be fine–I know from experience–I hope will help.
I personally think it is okay that newspapers go online and paper sort of fades over time. That does not bother me. What does concern me is the decline of daily newspaper (on or offline).
Who will cover things like city council meetings, etc.? These local events have a big impact on our lives and I doubt that bloggers can pick of the slack there.
In addition, the big newspapers seem to be hurting too. Whether or not you see bias or not there are a lot of reporters sent to cover a lot of stories here in the United States and abroad. I think we need professional journalists out covering stories every single day.
Yes, Neil. Bottom liine is we need newpapers in print or online.
I think it is inevitable that the “paper” newspaper will go extinct.
However, because the costs are much, much lower to put a newspaper online, I think going exclusively online will ultimately save many newspapers.
Let’s face it, the small pleasure of holding a paper physically in one’s hands is worth the trade off of enabling the “paper” to cut a MASSIVE costs of producing and distributing a paper version.
Both my grandparents on my mother’s side were journalists so I am familiar with how hard it is to be a professional journalist. It is really hard work. Many people do not realize how much shoe leather, interviewing, and stressful writing to meet tight deadlines it takes to be a journalist. It is a stressful profession and I wish our society had more respect for the professional journalist.
They deserve our thanks for running down the story often for low pay and, these days, not a lot of respect.
My grandparents day in journalism was one of drinking, smoking, and banging away at a typewriter. My grandmother was one of the few women in the profession and, for a while, was the second oldest syndicated columnist in the country.
I remember her telling me once that when she was around a group of male journalists who she did not know well, they would naturally hold back from free wheeling talk. She said she would swear early in the conversation to put them at ease. A tough crowd.
Times have changed since my maternal grandparents toiled at the typewriter. Journalists might not have a bottle of whisky in the bottom drawer and an ash tray overflowing with smokes these days but I suspect they have an even more stressful time of it now.
Let us, as a society, show respect for the shoe leather worn out by journalists every single day the world over.
I am very glad for the advent of bloggers and citizen journalists. They play an important role but I think we will always need the papers.
Beautifully said, Neil. Thank you.
FYI, Advertising Age has an editorial in its Nov. 3 issue titled: The Printed Newspaper Is Not Facing Extinction (Yet).
Here’s what they write:
Before we rush to dump the entire newspaper industry into the grave, everyone should take a deep breath. Daily newspapers aren’t going anywhere — not anytime soon, at least.
That’s not to say print newspapers don’t risk eventual extinction because of ongoing media and technology evolution. Many newspapers have adapted their editorial product to the web much better than, say, monthly consumer magazines. Still, every time we read that a newspaper has separate print and web editorial staffs, we shake our heads. News gathering should be one of the most expensive parts of the operation; it’s the only thing separating newspapers from blogs (and even that gap is closing). But certainly you don’t need two separate reporters covering the same story just because one runs on the web and the other in print.
The most likely place papers will run into an evolutionary dead end will be the advertising and subscription models. Even those who have climbed out of the muck to evolve into sturdy web-dwelling entities — The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times — realize they still get the bulk of their money from old-fashioned print. The Times, for example, has an excellent website, crammed as it is with all of the Times print stories as well as graphics and video made possible only because of the web. But if the powers that be decided to kill off the stodgy, gray and expensive-to-produce print version tomorrow, the rest of the operation wouldn’t be long for this world, starved of the advertising revenue brought in by the paper.
Some historical perspective is necessary as well, seeing as how we’ve all been killing off the daily paper for decades now. As Ted Turner said at the American Newspaper Publishers Association’s annual meeting way back in 1981, “You’re becoming obsolete very rapidly. It’s not your manner of news gathering that is at fault; it’s your dissemination that’s outdated.”
It’s been more than 25 years since Turner issued those remarks. And newspapers are still trying to figure out the dissemination model. But the print guys probably have a few years left in them. Still, they’d better figure out a revenue model before time runs out.
The Center for Media Research reports on a study today showing record audiences to newspaper websites, as print readership drops. The problem is the websites aren’t bringing in the ad revenue like the print editions do (or did). Here’s the news item from today…
…
According to a custom analysis by Nielsen Online for the Newspaper Association of America, newspaper web sites attracted more than 68.3 million unique visitors on average (41.4% of all Internet users) in the third quarter of 2008, a record number that reflects a 15.8% increase over the same period a year ago,
In addition, newspaper Web site visitors generated an average of just over 3.5 billion page views per month throughout the quarter, an increase of 25.2% over the same period a year ago (2.8 billion page views). These figures are the highest for any quarter since NAA began tracking the data in 2004.
The newspaper reinvention process will not be an easy task but the dangers you list are real, and the independence lost is critical to America as it was once known. That our technological facility may have now eclipsed our best interests may be a reality that has yet to sink in to the majority of casual observers. Consolidations might be expected for survival as print but in the long run, the spontaneity and 24 hour access to instant news from a variety of sources that is portable via blackberry or IPHONE and through video will present obstacles the Gutenberg method will not be able to overcome.
Reinvention of newspapers is therefore, the forthcoming revolution that must occur in that industry for organizational survival and independence is rapidly becoming clear, evidenced by its own statistics. Whether the print and the internet method can exist side by side for long are not odds that most are willing to accept. Something must give, and labor intensive printing and delivery is likely to be the loser.
The newspaper reinvention process will not be an easy task but the dangers you list are real, and the independence lost is critical to America as it was once known. That our technological facility may have now eclipsed our best interests may be a reality that has yet to sink in to the majority of casual observers. Consolidations might be expected for survival as print but in the long run, the spontaneity and 24 hour access to instant news from a variety of sources that is portable via blackberry or IPHONE and through video will present obstacles the Gutenberg method will not be able to overcome.
Reinvention of newspapers is therefore, the forthcoming revolution that must occur in that industry for organizational survival and independence is rapidly becoming clear, evidenced by its own statistics. Whether the print and the internet method can exist side by side for long are not odds that most are willing to accept. Something must give, and labor intensive printing and delivery is likely to be the loser.