I read a few blog’s regularly. Mark Evans blog is one of them. He used to be a tech journalist for the national post and recently quit to join a “blogging company”. He just wrote a very timely article on the future of newspapers.
Why do newspapers need to change?: Frankly, they have no choice. Circulation is declining as more people, particularly 15-to-25-year-olds, use the Web to get the news. Many newspapers in North America and Europe are also being hurt by free dailies such as Metro that appeal to commuters with a low-cost mix of wire stories and colour graphics and photographs.
What must newspapers do?: Experiment, innovate, focus on and engage the community. Clearly, newspapers need to embrace the Web, but it’s not just a matter of migrating stories from paper to the digital world. They need to encourage interaction with readers by soliciting comments about stories, providing links to external resources, launching blogs, podcasts and video blogs, and driving traffic between the newspaper and the Web site. There also needs to be more focus on the local community given national and international news is a commodity available in a wide variety of places. Fast Company, for example, has an excellent profile on the Naples Daily News, which has become the poster-child for local coverage with a Web site that offers news, including a daily video blogcast, and tools such as the ability to compare house prices, and receive text alerts about the weather. (Hat tip to Jeff Jarvis)
Where is the newspaper industry going?: As a starting point, let’s assume a growing number of consumers get the news fairly quickly from the Web, all-news radio and 24-hour TV stations such as CNN and NewsWorld. I’m talking about the major news such as accidents, natural disasters, political issues, business earnings, sports scores, etc. It means by the time a newspaper hits the front door in the morning, you’re probably aware of a good chunk of the news inside. So what does this mean? Well, newspapers - and this sounds strange - need to abandon the “news” because it’s become a commodity. Instead of telling people what happened (which they already know), they need to explain why it happened and what it means. It’s about perspective and context, which is difficult to find in a 300-word story on the Web. Among newspapers, the Washington Post, New York Times and Wall St. Journal lead the pack, which is why they also tend to be cited so frequently in the blogosphere. There is one exception to the “news” argument: newspapers need to provide strong local news coverage given they have the resources to provide coverage not widely available on the Web.
Who’s going to write the news?: There are two schools of thoughts: one, hire young, aggressive reporters for peanuts, and leverage their enthusiasm until they start to demand more money. Then, you let them go and hire a new crop of cheap talent. Rob Curley, who heads up the Naples Daily News online operations, has used this approach to provide extensive coverage with a skeleton staff. This low-cost approach will likely be embraced by more newspapers as a way to control costs. The question is whether there is room within this landscape for experienced, high price talent, and, if so, how many do you need? The other side of the coin is using some young talent to run around town to do the “grunt stuff” while having a small, but talented, group of senior reporters to write columns, news features and analysis pieces. Either way, the end result is you will end up with lower-cost and likely smaller newsrooms.
When do newspapers have to change?: Easy answer: now. Anyone who got caught with their pants down by the Web’s emergence as a news resource needs to adopt an aggressive, risk-taking approach. This will mean mistakes will be made, experiments will blow up, and pet projects will fail. It means newspapers have to stop being afraid of the Web cannibalizing the print product; they have stop thinking about the Web as a separate entity; and they need to stop thinking the sky is falling. As REM frontman Michael Stipe sings: “It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine”. Well, the Web means it is the end of the print world as the newspaper industry knows it but that’s okay. For newspapers that embrace change, experiment and dramatically change how they operate, they’ll likely survive and thrive - much like radio survived TV, and movie theatres survived the VCR and DVD.
The newspaper business is in serious trouble. Here in Canada you have the Toronto Star (Torstar Corp) that has lost a third of its value since 2004 and is still in decline. In August they made some significant cuts to staff but their stock price has continued to fall. Their recent second quarter results show another 30% drop in profit.
To make matters worse board directors are questioning the direction of the editorial department. Hello, in two years you have lost 1/3 of your value and your profits are declining and the directors are worried about the editorial direction. It does go to show that the ‘old guard’ is not in touch with today’s society. Times are changing and it is happening much faster than in the past.
Significant technology changes happens in months now compared to years and the large companies that are slow to adapt will be passed by. That is what has happened too many of the large newspaper companies across the world. Companies that complement their electronic content with their paper content will be the ones that succeed.
I think in some regards the death of the newspaper is a bit exagerated. The problem is costs.
To me the value of a newspaper is in news stories that matter, things that take research, digging and journalism. Thats news that makes a difference, alters policy and changes our lives.
but as the Internet becomes a more convienient way of speading news and frankly much cheaper…it seems the newspaper is left forgetting what its good at and trying to be an expensive rendition of a printed blog link. Medicine Hat New’s “This really happened” segment for example.
They cant be a website, but the truth is a website so far hasnt replaced journalism either. My concern is that traditional news agencies from Newspapers to TV are taking cheap meaningless stories and trying to make it entertaining instead of digging deep and unearthing truths that affect our lives. Of course meaningfull news is more expensive to produce and with shrinking subscriber bases we are seeing the domain of meaningfull news shrink. Newspapers and news agencies have been a very important part of democracy - but its been seriously dumbed down of late - and you wonder if technology has an answer to step up and fill that void….so far I would say it hasnt.
Good points DM
The costs are not the only problem, with declining circulation you are also getting less in advertising revenue. Advertisements on the internet have made people billionaires. That revenue isn’t coming from companies who added new money to the budget for internet advertising; it has come at the expense of print media; newspapers and magazines.
I agree that the technology today hasn’t replaced newspapers but it’s going to play a major role in the continued downward spiral of newspaper circulation. To some extent you can get your news on you mobile phone now (as long as you don’t mind the slow radiation poisoning –right Ivan) and that technology is only going to get better.
Soon you will be able to sign up for news pieces that will be delivered to you through satellite radio. If newspapers don’t embrace the changing technology they will continue to hampered by lower profits, declining circulation, and loss of overall company value.
Will the internet solely causes this demise? No.
Technology? Yes.