Slashdot Mirror
A Recipe for Newspaper Survival in the Internet Age
I've spent seven years working as a writer and editor for Slashdot's parent company. During this
time I've been to at least a dozen mainstream journalists' and editors'
conferences where the most-asked question was, "How do we adapt to the
Internet?" You'd think, with all the smart people working for
newspapers, that by now most of them would have figured out how to use
the Internet effectively enough that it would produce a significant
percentage of their profits. But they haven't. In this essay I will
tell you why they've failed to adapt, and what they must do if they want to survive in a world where the
Internet dominates the news business.
I'm going to use the Bradenton
Herald as an example, not because it's a bad
newspaper but because I live in the middle of its circulation area. The
Herald is a typical Knight
Ridder small-city newspaper in every way except one: it
serves Manatee
County, an area with a fast-growing
population where most new residents are old enough
that they grew up reading newspapers every day. Despite these favorable
factors, the Herald's circulation has declined by 3.5% in the last
year. Of course, newspaper circulation declines are now
normal rather than exceptional. Other newspapers have done far worse,
with the San Francisco Chronicle recording a 16.4% drop in the last six
months alone.
Readership vs. Circulation
Much of the Chron's circulation decrease was because it stopped giving away free papers. The Boston Globe also stopped a giveaway program and suffered a circulation decline as a result, although only about half as big a loss as the Chron's, but the Globe's marketing people have said that only half of the loss came from stopping the giveaways, and blamed the rest of it on the usual suspects, notably TV and the Internet.
These figures only measure paper newspaper circulation. They don't include Web readership, which generally seems to be trending (slowly) upwards on newspaper Web sites. Circulation figures can also be misleading because they only measure the total number of newspapers distributed, not the kind of people who read them. And readership quality can often be more important, in a business sense, than quantity. This is especially true for those newspapers (namely, just about all of them) that rely on advertising for the bulk of their income.
By definition, anyone who reads a newspaper online at home can afford a computer and an Internet connection, which means they aren't at the very bottom of the economic pile. Online readers are also likely to be more open to new experiences, products, and services than those who don't feel they need to use the Internet -- which by some estimates may be as many as half of all households within the Herald's circulation area, which has a higher percentage of retirees than all but a few other U.S. counties.
Journalism professor Douglas Fisher and media executive Alan Mutter have both talked about intentional circulation losses on their blogs. In his post, Fisher says, "The industry evolves to the point of small, expensive print publications and most of the 'mass' news on the Web somehow. Then, as we evolve toward paid content online will come issues such as whether a certain amount of 'base' information should be free for every person -- sort of like a public utility of information (perhaps presented as a social utility necessary in a functioning democratic society)."
Meanwhile, when newspapers talk about readership vs. circulation, they're typically trying to estimate how many people read each copy of their print product (pdf download) rather than come up with a total picture of their publication's readership, including its online presence. This is a mistake. Instead of treating their Web sites like unwelcome stepchildren, newspapers should turn them into their primary method of news delivery -- and teach their reporters, editors, and ad sales people how to work effectively with this new -- to them -- medium.
Slashdot Lessons
1. No matter how much I or any other reporter or editor may know about a subject, some of the readers know more. What's more, if you give those readers an easy way to contribute their knowledge to a story, they will.
Imagine a newspaper with a space for comments below each story on its Web site. This Slashdot story has comments directly attached to it, not tucked away from public view the way the Bradenton Herald's site hides reader comments on Bulletin Boards that aren't directly connected to any of the paper's articles or editorials. To make matters worse, the Herald's Bulletin Boards require a separate login to post. Even if you're a logged-in reader you must put in your username and password again to use them.
As a result of these posting barriers, you hardly see any reader comments on the Herald's site, and what few there are seem to come from a small group that posts over and over. Even the Herald's single (hard to find) blog, maintained by token hip-dude entertainment reporter Wade Tatangelo, draws so few daily comments that you could count them on the fingers of one hand -- and usually have four or five fingers left over.
By contrast, the Washington Post's Web site has two blogs, Achenblog and The Debate, prominently displayed on the Opinions page that almost always draw 100+ comments per post.
A truly Web-hip newspaper would not only allow but encourage reader comments on all of its stories, not just on a blog or two. With thousands of readers as fact-checkers, mistakes would rarely go uncorrected for long, and if there was any perceived bias in a controversial article, reader comments would make sure the other side got heard. Even better, a reader who witnessed an event the paper covered would be able to add his or her account of it to the reporter's, which would give other readers a richer and deeper view of it.
2. Not all readers know what they're talking about.
While some readers know more about any given topic than a professional journalist writing about it, most don't. Some, indeed, post anything about anything, including misleading or false information. This is why Slashdot has a moderation system, and why all newspaper Web sites need to have moderation systems in place before they allow reader posts attached directly to stories. Slashdot's, which is built into the code that runs the whole site, is probably too complicated for most newspapers, but everyone (including newspaper publishers) is free to download, use, and modify it. For those who don't want to use the code behind Slashdot, there are many other free (and proprietary) content management programs available that have similar -- and often simpler and less geeky -- moderation features built into them.
3. No matter what you do, some readers will post malicious and/or obscene comments
Slashdot removes posts only in response to Cease and Desist orders or legitimate copyright infringement complaints. We find that malicious or obscene posts are usually moderated into oblivion almost immediately, because our readers -- hundreds of whom have moderation power at any given moment -- have a sharp eye for stupid stuff.
A mainstream newspaper might choose to remove blatantly disgusting posts, which would take some staff time. There would also -- inevitably -- be second-guessing and complaints, including whines from readers who believed their posts were removed because they didn't follow the [fill in political party here] line, not because they used offensive language.
Moderation never makes everyone happy. Someone will always feel the rules are too loose, while someone else will believe they're too tight. And moderates -- I mean moderators -- will always get flak from ____-wingers who think they're biased. But these problems shouldn't stop grown-up newspaper people from soliciting and publishing readers' posts. They should already be accustomed to bias accusations.
4. What if readers post comments that advertisers don't like?
This is a problem, and one to which some newspapers are extremely sensitive --not just over readers' comments but sometimes over their own reporters' stories. A 1999 Washington Monthly article had some examples of how newspapers sometimes cater to advertisers instead of their readers. Allowing readers to comment on stories, and allowing them to post anything they want (other than obscenities, blatant hate speech, and personal attacks) increases readers' faith in the newspaper, which makes it a more effective advertising medium in the long run because some of that trust will rub off on advertisers that support it.
The Business Side of a Newspaper Web Site
Slashdot, like almost all other Web, broadcast, and print media outlets, depends on ad revenue for most of its income. For the first few years of its existence as a commercial entity, major advertisers were afraid to buy ads on Slashdot or other free-wheeling, community-driven sites. They worried that every time they touted a product, all the customers they'd ever irritated would post bad things about them. It's impossible to run a company of any scale without having at least a few dissatisfied customers, no matter how good your products and services are, so this was not an unjustified fear.
Luckily for Slashdot (and our parent company), many companies have learned that they are going to get criticized online whether they like it or not, so at the very worst, running ads on pages where they get slammed gives them a chance to tell their side of the story.
Keyword-based ad placement helps them do this. Imagine making software that's often knocked for its security vulnerabilities, while competing software is available that costs little or nothing and doesn't share your product's problems. You'd want to run a Get the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) campaign on every Web page where the competing product was being discussed so that you could tell people who are (obviously) interested in the competing product how awful it is, and why they should buy yours instead.
On a local newspaper Web site, a developer intent on replacing pristine wilderness along a scenic river with ugly condominium towers in the face of opposition from local citizens' groups could run a keyword-targeted campaign explaining why their buildings would be better than a swampy, mosquito-ridden riverfront. They could stress the fact that they would reduce the population of turtles, spiders, alligators, shore birds, frogs, and other annoying wildlife, and that runoff from their chemically-fertilized landscaping would help keep local fish populations down by contributing to red tide, thereby reducing the number of smelly fishermen infesting the area.
Other, more sensible, businesses would use the same tactic -- keyword ad placement -- to sponsor discussions in a positive way. An obvious example here in Florida would be resort property owners linking ads to tourism-related stories and the discussions attached to them. With geotargeting becoming common on the Web, ads aimed at visitors could be visible to all of a Florida newspaper's online readers, while ads for a local business would only be shown to local residents -- unless the local advertiser was canny enough to realize that Florida has many thousands of seasonal residents, and that reaching these snowbirds through the local newspaper's Web site before they come South is a great way to get a leg up on competitors.
Some other ways to exploit the Web that newspapers don't seem to do well:
I believe the future of not only classified ads but of local news gathering and distribution is the "local-focused interactive community." According to this article, craigslist founder Craig Newmark agrees with me. So do plenty of other Web entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who are busily building and financing "community" sites.
Local newspapers should have dominated all of this interactivity from the beginning. They had the name recognition and -- through their print editions -- the promotional muscle to make their Web sites into unassailable community hubs. But they didn't, and now they're reduced to playing catch-up.
If the Sarasota Herald-Tribune had followed through on its plans to incorporate reader-written blogs into its site, Suncoastblog.com probably wouldn't exist. This group blog is an admittedly lame effort, barely begun, put together by several people in this area (including me) who thought it would be nice to have a local site that might eventually cover events and places that don't make their way into the local papers. We know the Herald-Tribune, whose circulation area overlaps the Bradenton Herald's, had thought about hosting reader blogs at one point, because they asked readers to submit blog ideas several months ago. I submitted one and never heard back.
I also submitted a local computer business column concept to the Herald. I came up with it because the Herald has a Sunday business page it calls "Digital Manatee," on which I have never seen anything other than out-of-town wire service material even though there is more than enough local computer and Internet business activity to fill a weekly column, and enough local computer and computer service vendors to surround that column with profitable advertising.
The Herald's editor didn't respond to my proposal. I've written three computer-oriented books, and thousands of articles that have run online and in print all over the world, but I am apparently not worth even a polite turndown from my local paper's editor. No problem. A week later I was having lunch with a couple of local entrepreneur buddies. I told them what had happened. They suggested an online computer business magazine instead of a Herald column, and offered to finance it on the spot, out of their pockets.
I don't have time to start a new publication. But I am in a position to help someone else start one, and to write a story or two for it now and then. Financing's in place. So is a domain name. So at some point the Herald and Herald-Tribune may have (yet) another niche publication competing with them. It won't be a big competitor, but its ad revenue will come from lucrative business-to-business accounts you'd think a local newspaper would be eager to lock up with a weekly (or more frequent) column for local computer-using business people.
This doesn't mean the Herald has a bad editor or that another small paper would have reacted differently. I use this anecdote only to point out that it is now easier to start an online publication than for even a highly-qualified outsider to get his or her work into a local paper. Is it any wonder that local blogs and other online niche publications are springing up like mad? And as a corollary, is it any wonder that newspaper circulation and influence continues to decline?
Newspapers need to open up more to the communities around them. They need to stop confining their interaction with readers to advisory board meetings and questionnaires, and allow readers' stories, opinions, and thoughts to become an integral part of the newspaper itself. They should not allow readers to alter the newspaper's own words, as the Los Angeles Times did back in June with their laughable wikitorial experiment. Moderated comments are a much better way to give readers a voice. So are journals that allow (logged-in) readers the same level of freedom they'd have with their own blogs, but also give them the cachet of being published on a "major brand" Web site.
'Local' is the Key Word
The Herald, Herald-Tribune, and many other (if not most) local newspapers seem to think that they are still their readers' primary source of national and international news, just as they were 20 years ago. So that's what fills their front pages most of the time, with local and regional news stuck in a "B" or "C" section.
Welcome to the Internet age, local newspaper (and TV) people. I can and do get my national and international news from the New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, Al Jazeera, Fox News, CNN, and other online media that cover faraway events better and faster than you ever will. I turn to you for local news. You tell me more about last week's home invasion robbery on 11th Street East than they ever will.
It's time for local newspapers to become truly local; to feature local news on the front pages of both their Web sites and print editions, with only a few out-of-the-area stories up front, augmented by an above-the-fold story list that tells readers where to find national and international news on their inside pages.
Add readers' stories and comments to the mix and you suddenly have a local online community, not just a newspaper. This will not take work away from professional reporters, photographers, and editors, who will still be the foundation of local news-gathering. In fact, increased interaction with local community members will probably give them more work than ever, because they will find themselves inundated with news tips and story suggestions they never would have found on their own. Some of these story ideas will be dreck and some will be invaluable. It will be up to the newspaper's editors to find the (rare) nuggets in the huge pile of dross they will need to sort through every day, and up to the newspaper's reporters to follow up on them.
One important thing a community-oriented, Web-based newspaper must do is credit readers for their story leads unless they specifically request anonymity. Another good idea is to pay readers who submit news stories that are written well enough that they can run with only routine editing and fact-checking. Those readers are, in effect, doing a reporter's work, and they should get some sort of compensation for it. Some may even turn into stringers capable of covering government meetings and other events when staff reporters aren't available, and a few of those stringers eventually ought to become staff members. After all, if a newspaper is going to be about, by, and for its local community, shouldn't that community be its primary recruiting ground?
Newspapers Will Not Die
Some newspapers (and newspaper chains) will probably not survive the shift from news-as-monologue to news-as-dialog. Most will, although those that wait too long to adjust will have much of their audience, influence, and ad revenue taken away by more agile competitors.
The smartest newspapers will follow my survival recipe or come up with their own way to become an integral part of their community instead of a building full of people who have been sprinkled with Secret Journalism Powder that makes them better and smarter than their readers. These newspapers will not only survive, but prosper. They may even become the prime outlets for bloggers in their communities, which will increase their readership and ad revenue. Extreme ____-wing bloggers won't want their words associated with the hated Mainstream Media, but most others will be happy to have a widely-read, influential outlet for their work.
Eventually, I expect print newspapers to become "snapshots" of their Web editions taken at 1 a.m. or another arbitrary time, poured into page templates and massaged a little by layout people, then sent to the printing presses, a pattern that has potential for significant production cost reductions if handled adroitly. From that point on, their paper editions will be distributed the same way newspapers are now.
Senior citizens and others who can't afford (or don't want) computers are and will continue to be a viable market. So will commuters who use public transportation. Then there are those -- a substantial part of the population -- who simply prefer reading words and looking at pictures on paper to seeing them on a screen. They will still want physical newspapers, even if they are not as up-to-date or as complete as what they'd get on the Web.
However it is delivered, text will not go away anytime soon. For a fast reader, it is the most efficient way to take in large quantities of information. Most people speak at a rate of between 130 and 200 words per minute. Most college students, according to a Virginia Tech student guide, can read non-technical material at 250 to 300 words per minute, and can increase that reading speed significantly with a little thought and practice. Listening to a city council meeting at 150 words per minute takes much longer than reading a meeting transcript at two, three, four or ten times that speed. Now have a skilled reporter -- whether a staff member, paid contributor or volunteer -- write an intelligent summary of that meeting, and even an average reader can learn what happened there in a few minutes instead of slogging through a two hour audio or video recording.
The Web version of that summary can be posted without waiting for the printing presses and delivery trucks to roll, and can have audio or video snippets embedded in it, but there is no reason not to make the text portion of it available on paper for those who prefer it in that form, unless the paper's editors decide so few people are interested in a city council meeting that it doesn't deserve a spot in the print version -- and tracking page readership on the Web version of the paper before the paper edition goes to press should give those editors a good idea of what they should and shouldn't put on paper.
Printed newspapers will have a significant following for many years to come. They may or may not become "expensive," as Professor Fisher predicts, but they will likely become smaller than they are now, and subscription sales efforts will probably be targeted more closely at groups unlikely to have Internet connections, especially senior citizens.
On the Web side, it's likely that newspapers will end up keeping most of their content free, with specialty sections (and posting privileges) reserved for logged-in users. Whether they'll be able to charge for some or all of their Web content is questionable. I paid $50 for a year's subscription to the NYT's Times Select program, and I don't think it's a good enough value that I'll renew my subscription when it runs out. I would be more likely to pay if I lived in New York and that subscription, in addition to what it gives me now, offered access to additional features like complete transcripts of government meetings. Indeed, I would happily pay at least $30 per year to the Bradenton Herald for a well-organized Web edition that gave me what I now get in the paper edition, plus government meeting transcripts and other useful subscriber-only features.
But if I paid for an online subscription to the Herald, I'd probably drop my subscription to the paper edition. I'd still be the same person, with the same interests, earning power and spending habits. The only thing that would change about me, from the newspaper's perspective, would be my news delivery preference.
The challenge for local newspapers that beef up their Web editions at the expense of their paper versions won't be to keep (or add) readers, but to teach advertisers that the Web, not paper, is the best way to reach their most lucrative potential customers.
This may not be easy, but it will be a lot easier than explaining to advertisers why they should keep spending money in a newspaper that has fewer readers, and less influence, every year.
Readership vs. Circulation
Much of the Chron's circulation decrease was because it stopped giving away free papers. The Boston Globe also stopped a giveaway program and suffered a circulation decline as a result, although only about half as big a loss as the Chron's, but the Globe's marketing people have said that only half of the loss came from stopping the giveaways, and blamed the rest of it on the usual suspects, notably TV and the Internet.
These figures only measure paper newspaper circulation. They don't include Web readership, which generally seems to be trending (slowly) upwards on newspaper Web sites. Circulation figures can also be misleading because they only measure the total number of newspapers distributed, not the kind of people who read them. And readership quality can often be more important, in a business sense, than quantity. This is especially true for those newspapers (namely, just about all of them) that rely on advertising for the bulk of their income.
By definition, anyone who reads a newspaper online at home can afford a computer and an Internet connection, which means they aren't at the very bottom of the economic pile. Online readers are also likely to be more open to new experiences, products, and services than those who don't feel they need to use the Internet -- which by some estimates may be as many as half of all households within the Herald's circulation area, which has a higher percentage of retirees than all but a few other U.S. counties.
Journalism professor Douglas Fisher and media executive Alan Mutter have both talked about intentional circulation losses on their blogs. In his post, Fisher says, "The industry evolves to the point of small, expensive print publications and most of the 'mass' news on the Web somehow. Then, as we evolve toward paid content online will come issues such as whether a certain amount of 'base' information should be free for every person -- sort of like a public utility of information (perhaps presented as a social utility necessary in a functioning democratic society)."
Meanwhile, when newspapers talk about readership vs. circulation, they're typically trying to estimate how many people read each copy of their print product (pdf download) rather than come up with a total picture of their publication's readership, including its online presence. This is a mistake. Instead of treating their Web sites like unwelcome stepchildren, newspapers should turn them into their primary method of news delivery -- and teach their reporters, editors, and ad sales people how to work effectively with this new -- to them -- medium.
Slashdot Lessons
1. No matter how much I or any other reporter or editor may know about a subject, some of the readers know more. What's more, if you give those readers an easy way to contribute their knowledge to a story, they will.
Imagine a newspaper with a space for comments below each story on its Web site. This Slashdot story has comments directly attached to it, not tucked away from public view the way the Bradenton Herald's site hides reader comments on Bulletin Boards that aren't directly connected to any of the paper's articles or editorials. To make matters worse, the Herald's Bulletin Boards require a separate login to post. Even if you're a logged-in reader you must put in your username and password again to use them.
As a result of these posting barriers, you hardly see any reader comments on the Herald's site, and what few there are seem to come from a small group that posts over and over. Even the Herald's single (hard to find) blog, maintained by token hip-dude entertainment reporter Wade Tatangelo, draws so few daily comments that you could count them on the fingers of one hand -- and usually have four or five fingers left over.
By contrast, the Washington Post's Web site has two blogs, Achenblog and The Debate, prominently displayed on the Opinions page that almost always draw 100+ comments per post.
A truly Web-hip newspaper would not only allow but encourage reader comments on all of its stories, not just on a blog or two. With thousands of readers as fact-checkers, mistakes would rarely go uncorrected for long, and if there was any perceived bias in a controversial article, reader comments would make sure the other side got heard. Even better, a reader who witnessed an event the paper covered would be able to add his or her account of it to the reporter's, which would give other readers a richer and deeper view of it.
2. Not all readers know what they're talking about.
While some readers know more about any given topic than a professional journalist writing about it, most don't. Some, indeed, post anything about anything, including misleading or false information. This is why Slashdot has a moderation system, and why all newspaper Web sites need to have moderation systems in place before they allow reader posts attached directly to stories. Slashdot's, which is built into the code that runs the whole site, is probably too complicated for most newspapers, but everyone (including newspaper publishers) is free to download, use, and modify it. For those who don't want to use the code behind Slashdot, there are many other free (and proprietary) content management programs available that have similar -- and often simpler and less geeky -- moderation features built into them.
3. No matter what you do, some readers will post malicious and/or obscene comments
Slashdot removes posts only in response to Cease and Desist orders or legitimate copyright infringement complaints. We find that malicious or obscene posts are usually moderated into oblivion almost immediately, because our readers -- hundreds of whom have moderation power at any given moment -- have a sharp eye for stupid stuff.
A mainstream newspaper might choose to remove blatantly disgusting posts, which would take some staff time. There would also -- inevitably -- be second-guessing and complaints, including whines from readers who believed their posts were removed because they didn't follow the [fill in political party here] line, not because they used offensive language.
Moderation never makes everyone happy. Someone will always feel the rules are too loose, while someone else will believe they're too tight. And moderates -- I mean moderators -- will always get flak from ____-wingers who think they're biased. But these problems shouldn't stop grown-up newspaper people from soliciting and publishing readers' posts. They should already be accustomed to bias accusations.
4. What if readers post comments that advertisers don't like?
This is a problem, and one to which some newspapers are extremely sensitive --not just over readers' comments but sometimes over their own reporters' stories. A 1999 Washington Monthly article had some examples of how newspapers sometimes cater to advertisers instead of their readers. Allowing readers to comment on stories, and allowing them to post anything they want (other than obscenities, blatant hate speech, and personal attacks) increases readers' faith in the newspaper, which makes it a more effective advertising medium in the long run because some of that trust will rub off on advertisers that support it.
The Business Side of a Newspaper Web Site
Slashdot, like almost all other Web, broadcast, and print media outlets, depends on ad revenue for most of its income. For the first few years of its existence as a commercial entity, major advertisers were afraid to buy ads on Slashdot or other free-wheeling, community-driven sites. They worried that every time they touted a product, all the customers they'd ever irritated would post bad things about them. It's impossible to run a company of any scale without having at least a few dissatisfied customers, no matter how good your products and services are, so this was not an unjustified fear.
Luckily for Slashdot (and our parent company), many companies have learned that they are going to get criticized online whether they like it or not, so at the very worst, running ads on pages where they get slammed gives them a chance to tell their side of the story.
Keyword-based ad placement helps them do this. Imagine making software that's often knocked for its security vulnerabilities, while competing software is available that costs little or nothing and doesn't share your product's problems. You'd want to run a Get the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) campaign on every Web page where the competing product was being discussed so that you could tell people who are (obviously) interested in the competing product how awful it is, and why they should buy yours instead.
On a local newspaper Web site, a developer intent on replacing pristine wilderness along a scenic river with ugly condominium towers in the face of opposition from local citizens' groups could run a keyword-targeted campaign explaining why their buildings would be better than a swampy, mosquito-ridden riverfront. They could stress the fact that they would reduce the population of turtles, spiders, alligators, shore birds, frogs, and other annoying wildlife, and that runoff from their chemically-fertilized landscaping would help keep local fish populations down by contributing to red tide, thereby reducing the number of smelly fishermen infesting the area.
Other, more sensible, businesses would use the same tactic -- keyword ad placement -- to sponsor discussions in a positive way. An obvious example here in Florida would be resort property owners linking ads to tourism-related stories and the discussions attached to them. With geotargeting becoming common on the Web, ads aimed at visitors could be visible to all of a Florida newspaper's online readers, while ads for a local business would only be shown to local residents -- unless the local advertiser was canny enough to realize that Florida has many thousands of seasonal residents, and that reaching these snowbirds through the local newspaper's Web site before they come South is a great way to get a leg up on competitors.
Some other ways to exploit the Web that newspapers don't seem to do well:
- Print-them-yourself coupons. This is lots cheaper than putting coupons in a print newspaper. Many newspapers boast that today's paper contains $___ worth of coupon savings. Why don't more papers make this boast about their online editions? TV stations could do this on their sites, too. This would be an entirely new source of revenue for them, since there is no way to put a coupon in a TV spot.
- Online ad circulars, similar to the paper ones that pack print newspapers on Sundays and holidays. The print ones are expensive to produce and deliver, especially in color. Online circulars would be far less costly.
- Selling sponsorships for community calendars and other "public interest" sections that should be on every newspaper's Web site -- but often aren't or are produced in too scattered a manner to be useful for readers. C'mon, newspaper (and local TV) people! A well-organized, database-driven events calendar is easy to produce. If you don't have one (and sponsors for it), you should.
- Sponsored, "free to individuals and small businesses," local classifieds. craigslist and eBay are busily taking the classified ad market away from newspapers, with Google getting ready to help them with this effort. The Poynter Institute's Steve Outing suggests that the best way to beat back this threat is to "Turn newspaper classifieds into an active and interactive community, instead of just static, dull listings. A cold-hearted newspaper classifieds database could well be smothered by Google classifieds. A local-focused interactive community may be less vulnerable."
I believe the future of not only classified ads but of local news gathering and distribution is the "local-focused interactive community." According to this article, craigslist founder Craig Newmark agrees with me. So do plenty of other Web entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who are busily building and financing "community" sites.
Local newspapers should have dominated all of this interactivity from the beginning. They had the name recognition and -- through their print editions -- the promotional muscle to make their Web sites into unassailable community hubs. But they didn't, and now they're reduced to playing catch-up.
If the Sarasota Herald-Tribune had followed through on its plans to incorporate reader-written blogs into its site, Suncoastblog.com probably wouldn't exist. This group blog is an admittedly lame effort, barely begun, put together by several people in this area (including me) who thought it would be nice to have a local site that might eventually cover events and places that don't make their way into the local papers. We know the Herald-Tribune, whose circulation area overlaps the Bradenton Herald's, had thought about hosting reader blogs at one point, because they asked readers to submit blog ideas several months ago. I submitted one and never heard back.
I also submitted a local computer business column concept to the Herald. I came up with it because the Herald has a Sunday business page it calls "Digital Manatee," on which I have never seen anything other than out-of-town wire service material even though there is more than enough local computer and Internet business activity to fill a weekly column, and enough local computer and computer service vendors to surround that column with profitable advertising.
The Herald's editor didn't respond to my proposal. I've written three computer-oriented books, and thousands of articles that have run online and in print all over the world, but I am apparently not worth even a polite turndown from my local paper's editor. No problem. A week later I was having lunch with a couple of local entrepreneur buddies. I told them what had happened. They suggested an online computer business magazine instead of a Herald column, and offered to finance it on the spot, out of their pockets.
I don't have time to start a new publication. But I am in a position to help someone else start one, and to write a story or two for it now and then. Financing's in place. So is a domain name. So at some point the Herald and Herald-Tribune may have (yet) another niche publication competing with them. It won't be a big competitor, but its ad revenue will come from lucrative business-to-business accounts you'd think a local newspaper would be eager to lock up with a weekly (or more frequent) column for local computer-using business people.
This doesn't mean the Herald has a bad editor or that another small paper would have reacted differently. I use this anecdote only to point out that it is now easier to start an online publication than for even a highly-qualified outsider to get his or her work into a local paper. Is it any wonder that local blogs and other online niche publications are springing up like mad? And as a corollary, is it any wonder that newspaper circulation and influence continues to decline?
Newspapers need to open up more to the communities around them. They need to stop confining their interaction with readers to advisory board meetings and questionnaires, and allow readers' stories, opinions, and thoughts to become an integral part of the newspaper itself. They should not allow readers to alter the newspaper's own words, as the Los Angeles Times did back in June with their laughable wikitorial experiment. Moderated comments are a much better way to give readers a voice. So are journals that allow (logged-in) readers the same level of freedom they'd have with their own blogs, but also give them the cachet of being published on a "major brand" Web site.
'Local' is the Key Word
The Herald, Herald-Tribune, and many other (if not most) local newspapers seem to think that they are still their readers' primary source of national and international news, just as they were 20 years ago. So that's what fills their front pages most of the time, with local and regional news stuck in a "B" or "C" section.
Welcome to the Internet age, local newspaper (and TV) people. I can and do get my national and international news from the New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, Al Jazeera, Fox News, CNN, and other online media that cover faraway events better and faster than you ever will. I turn to you for local news. You tell me more about last week's home invasion robbery on 11th Street East than they ever will.
It's time for local newspapers to become truly local; to feature local news on the front pages of both their Web sites and print editions, with only a few out-of-the-area stories up front, augmented by an above-the-fold story list that tells readers where to find national and international news on their inside pages.
Add readers' stories and comments to the mix and you suddenly have a local online community, not just a newspaper. This will not take work away from professional reporters, photographers, and editors, who will still be the foundation of local news-gathering. In fact, increased interaction with local community members will probably give them more work than ever, because they will find themselves inundated with news tips and story suggestions they never would have found on their own. Some of these story ideas will be dreck and some will be invaluable. It will be up to the newspaper's editors to find the (rare) nuggets in the huge pile of dross they will need to sort through every day, and up to the newspaper's reporters to follow up on them.
One important thing a community-oriented, Web-based newspaper must do is credit readers for their story leads unless they specifically request anonymity. Another good idea is to pay readers who submit news stories that are written well enough that they can run with only routine editing and fact-checking. Those readers are, in effect, doing a reporter's work, and they should get some sort of compensation for it. Some may even turn into stringers capable of covering government meetings and other events when staff reporters aren't available, and a few of those stringers eventually ought to become staff members. After all, if a newspaper is going to be about, by, and for its local community, shouldn't that community be its primary recruiting ground?
Newspapers Will Not Die
Some newspapers (and newspaper chains) will probably not survive the shift from news-as-monologue to news-as-dialog. Most will, although those that wait too long to adjust will have much of their audience, influence, and ad revenue taken away by more agile competitors.
The smartest newspapers will follow my survival recipe or come up with their own way to become an integral part of their community instead of a building full of people who have been sprinkled with Secret Journalism Powder that makes them better and smarter than their readers. These newspapers will not only survive, but prosper. They may even become the prime outlets for bloggers in their communities, which will increase their readership and ad revenue. Extreme ____-wing bloggers won't want their words associated with the hated Mainstream Media, but most others will be happy to have a widely-read, influential outlet for their work.
Eventually, I expect print newspapers to become "snapshots" of their Web editions taken at 1 a.m. or another arbitrary time, poured into page templates and massaged a little by layout people, then sent to the printing presses, a pattern that has potential for significant production cost reductions if handled adroitly. From that point on, their paper editions will be distributed the same way newspapers are now.
Senior citizens and others who can't afford (or don't want) computers are and will continue to be a viable market. So will commuters who use public transportation. Then there are those -- a substantial part of the population -- who simply prefer reading words and looking at pictures on paper to seeing them on a screen. They will still want physical newspapers, even if they are not as up-to-date or as complete as what they'd get on the Web.
However it is delivered, text will not go away anytime soon. For a fast reader, it is the most efficient way to take in large quantities of information. Most people speak at a rate of between 130 and 200 words per minute. Most college students, according to a Virginia Tech student guide, can read non-technical material at 250 to 300 words per minute, and can increase that reading speed significantly with a little thought and practice. Listening to a city council meeting at 150 words per minute takes much longer than reading a meeting transcript at two, three, four or ten times that speed. Now have a skilled reporter -- whether a staff member, paid contributor or volunteer -- write an intelligent summary of that meeting, and even an average reader can learn what happened there in a few minutes instead of slogging through a two hour audio or video recording.
The Web version of that summary can be posted without waiting for the printing presses and delivery trucks to roll, and can have audio or video snippets embedded in it, but there is no reason not to make the text portion of it available on paper for those who prefer it in that form, unless the paper's editors decide so few people are interested in a city council meeting that it doesn't deserve a spot in the print version -- and tracking page readership on the Web version of the paper before the paper edition goes to press should give those editors a good idea of what they should and shouldn't put on paper.
Printed newspapers will have a significant following for many years to come. They may or may not become "expensive," as Professor Fisher predicts, but they will likely become smaller than they are now, and subscription sales efforts will probably be targeted more closely at groups unlikely to have Internet connections, especially senior citizens.
On the Web side, it's likely that newspapers will end up keeping most of their content free, with specialty sections (and posting privileges) reserved for logged-in users. Whether they'll be able to charge for some or all of their Web content is questionable. I paid $50 for a year's subscription to the NYT's Times Select program, and I don't think it's a good enough value that I'll renew my subscription when it runs out. I would be more likely to pay if I lived in New York and that subscription, in addition to what it gives me now, offered access to additional features like complete transcripts of government meetings. Indeed, I would happily pay at least $30 per year to the Bradenton Herald for a well-organized Web edition that gave me what I now get in the paper edition, plus government meeting transcripts and other useful subscriber-only features.
But if I paid for an online subscription to the Herald, I'd probably drop my subscription to the paper edition. I'd still be the same person, with the same interests, earning power and spending habits. The only thing that would change about me, from the newspaper's perspective, would be my news delivery preference.
The challenge for local newspapers that beef up their Web editions at the expense of their paper versions won't be to keep (or add) readers, but to teach advertisers that the Web, not paper, is the best way to reach their most lucrative potential customers.
This may not be easy, but it will be a lot easier than explaining to advertisers why they should keep spending money in a newspaper that has fewer readers, and less influence, every year.
So in short, you're saying
1) Newspapers should all have Web sites that run something like Slashcode.
Have you considered that Slashdot, where people come for the comments and not the stories, is the exception and not the rule?
2) Newspapers should run Slashvertisements.
One thing newspapers have which Slashdot does not is journalistic integrity.
3) Local newspapers should not ignore their audience.
Sure, I'll buy that. But this is just a way of saying that customer service is important to a business.
4) Rumors of the New York Times's death have been greatly exaggerated.
But times are tight. Layoffs at the Times and the Journal, KRT looking to sell itself -- yuck.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
Ego and arrogance. Newspapers need to let go of the idea that they are the harbinger and gateway of all information. The lofty self-appointed (and aritificial) perch they've created for themselves is obvious. What kind of self-respecting person would get news from any of these simpletons when they can get it from us. Blogs have been more successful as a news source exactly because of the print medias long and constant arrogant approach to them. Now, some are finally starting to catch up, but for the most part, vast and entire new media entities are taking huge market share from newspaper because of their elitism causing a massive delay in switching to web.
Your "recipe" assumes that newspaper editors are of the correct mindset, already. I think alot of them have a long way to go. The entire concept of an editorial, in print form, as the golden platonic representation of "opinion" is going to be nothing more than a quaint idea of yesteryear...
There is no survival of defunct and obsolete media.
/. know others here than they do their own real life neighbors.
Television advertisers will return to product placement, billboards and bus advertisements. DVR's are becoming so prevalent that the TV ad is dead. I ran tens of thousands of dollars over advertising in TV and radio over the years and this year my ads cost almost $2000 per customer gained (versus $20 just a few years ago). My newspaper ads are never read any longer.
The "Everything" newspapers will be the first to die -- they are at least 6 hours and at most 18 hours late on the news. The TV news channels are dying as well as the information that is read is obviously of no concern to the talking heads, and the information is so generic that it likely affects no one.
I still see room for opinion media forms -- preaching to the choir is a great income source.
The commentary of the editor is interesting:
Much of the Chron's circulation decrease was because it stopped giving away free papers.
How do you give away a paper for free when the advertisers pull out en masse? I will never advertise in a newspaper or magazine or coupon clipper ever again. More and more advertisers are pulling out as well.
Achenblog and The Debate, prominently displayed on the Opinions page that almost always draw 100+ comments per post.
100 comments out of a paper that used to reach millions is piss-poor sorry. If I was an advertiser and saw only 100 comments, I'd dump that paper in seconds. No thanks.
With RSS feeds and the number of specific blogs with actually decent information growing every day, classic news on the web is as ancient as the newspaper idea. Consumers can now create their own content papers. I'd rather find a decent RSS-Newspaper portal that helps me formulate my own daily paper than go to Washpost.com.
Print-them-yourself coupons.
I like this idea, and I have tried it in many avenues and I have never seen a coupon come in that was generated online. Not one (and my customer is usually a 13-31 year old male). I've tried e-mail coupons, too, and I believe we received one customer out of it. Coupons are dead when you have Froogle and Amazon already telling your customer that your store is too expensive.
Online ad circulars
Again, dead. Froogle and Amazon make this idea bunk. "Hey I can save $5 on the Widget at Dada's Shop, oh but wait it's $15 cheaper at Amazon with free shipping!"
Selling sponsorships for community calendars and other "public interest" sections that should be on every newspaper's Web site
And as the web grows bigger, I see more people ignoring their communities of people dissimilar to them and gain respect for their web communities of people similar to themselves. More geeks on
Sponsored, "free to individuals and small businesses," local classifieds.
Great idea. Advertise to 500 readers for free, or sell it on ebay to 5M readers for $1. Hmm, I think I'll take option 2.
'Local' is the Key Word
I wish that was the case. When I attempted to create some local scenes over the years online, as more of my customer base jumped on the internet, more of the local scenes online fell way to the nationally-oriented scenes. The punks that used to stick to our punk rock forum (we sold punk music) dropped us for the national scene. The paintballers that used to frequent our paintball forum (we sell paintball equipment) dumped us for the national scene. The skateboards that used to frequent our skate spot forum (we sell skate equipment) did the same. Why? 5 messages a day from the same 100 people is boring compared to hundreds of opinions.
It's time for local newspapers to become truly local
And attempt to sell itself to 500 people? I think it is more important for newspaper to face reality -- you can't please all of the people all of the time if the group is small. It is bet
Robin,
Pretty well written, and looking at papers like the NY Times that are distributed all over the damn world, you'd think they would know how to leverage the internet to augment the lack of interest by most people under the age of 50 who are not in the financial business.
I work for a company in the financial industry and we ge the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal every day. Oddly, its only read by one person... maybe two. For the most part, our staff goes to their web sites to read what is in the papers.
By far, the complaint i get the most is that a registration is required. this isn't a money problem, its a logistical one. My users are quite lazy and don't want to have to be bothered to log into another web site to read the news. Thankfully, they're finding that they can get the same articles, and often from those papers from Google News, and Yahoo Finance.
If these papers want to avoid the fate of the dinosaur, as you said, they need to focus on advertising are an income source, not charging the people that actually would like to read what they have to say.
I've been reading news "online" since 1984 when I received my first Hayes 300 baud full length internal ISA modem.
I am so accustomed to online news that I only read the news on my PDA phone (on the go, on the throne, in the plane). I will read zines and some opinion ed newsletters in paper form, but that's about it.
One of my businesses is a retail store with the customers being generally 13-31 year old males. The younger ones (under 25) don't read the paper at all, in fact, more news gets passed through SMS than even e-mail or web forum. I can't believe how many kids have AIM on their phones.
Old people are also transitioning to online and simple message information sharing. My father is legally blind yet he uses the Microsoft magnifying lens and his wife to read his news online rather than deal with the paper (he's retired).
The newspaper in San Antonio Tx did not seem clueful the last time I checked, but of all places the "Arkansas Democrat Gazette" http://www.ardemgaz.com/ has had several high tech experiments, that look interesting, some looked like they spent more money than was needful, but still they were striving for something useful on the internet.
A.G. Russell IV Extreme Internet Solutions The wonderful thing about standards . there are so many to choose from! "W
I used to have a subscription to the local newspaper, but after a while I cancelled it because I felt guilty for using so much paper and never really reading it, even though I recycled it.
I don't feel too hostile towards our local paper even though they sold out to a souless conglomerate that brings in most of the reporters from out of town. I would still have a subscription if it wasn't for the fact that my paper always seemed to be missing, four hours late, or soaking wet.
Instead of charging $3.75 a week for that "service" why don't they charge $2.50 and make everything available on a subscriber version of the website? I would pay for that -- access to local news is something that people should have, imho.
The altruistic side of me also thinks that they should release all news that is no longer economically viable (older then three months?) into the public domain and keep archives on their website. Of course they don't have much incentive to do this because they can sell "archive access", but it would be a public service. Between the money they originally made and the advertising dollars on the website I doubt it would be a losing game for them.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
agreed. Movie critics who did not go to film school, et al.
/., are competent, and love it). My solution: so many people are retiring younger and healthier than ever before. These people should teach. They've already led successful lives, have loads of life experience and thus have loads of things to teach that aren't in textbooks. More importantly, they have nest eggs so the meager salary isn't an issue to them because they're secure financially. They can afford to do it and are the most suited to do it. It's actually a program here in NY - where the school system is actively recruiting young retirees. This way you dramatically increase the quality of the school system with marginal cost increases.
I have a similar problem with teachers. New teachers are usually in my age range, and don't have much real world experience, are probably not mature enough to teach, et al. But they teach because they were in the lower range of their graduating class with generic degrees and as thus are willing to take meager salaries (this is my general experience with my friends who teach; no offense to those of you who teach on
My experience is that many of my friends in journalism are similar. They face similar issues: meager salaries, low barriers to entry, etc. I propose a similar solution - young retirees move into the journalism space. They've worked in the industry - have decades of perspective. With telecommuting what it is - they can perpetually report from the field... which would be where they choose to retire, etc. They can take the meager salaries because they have nest eggs, etc.
The secondary issue is that modern journalism is vertically integrated with political agendas in large politically vested corporations. I can imagine that the general public often feels hoodwinked and manipulated by the media - coerced into groupthink. That mistrust and the ease with which a motivated individual can self publish will continue a dramatic shift in the power dynamic. There will no longer be a monopoly on information (unless you're google).
The only time I pick up a paper is because an enterprising drug dealer disguises ads for pot in the classified section of the village voice. And they deliver.
un burrito me trampeó.
Keep in mind journalistic integrity only applies to the article and not those commenting. Just because a comment is wrong does not make it un-informative. People are being informed, just incorrectly. Remember, these are comments (see peanut gallery) and should be taken as such. I bet that the inaccuracy rates of "real" newspapers are about the same as Slashdot. Have you really read a newspaper and checked it for fact and objectivity recently.
Slashdot, and other user moderated sites have an unwritten "social contract." We except some mis-information in order to get some good stuff. We have words like Flaimbait and Troll to describe posts. I wish newspapers had such things, I would love to have gotten the opportunity to moderate the "missing white girl" stories as flaimbait... and most things political as trolls.
I'd settle for more citations of named sources, including references to other articles, especially across publications. The Web is killing print not just by convenience and cost, but by corroboration. Cross-referencing is half the battle in learning whether to trust a published report. The other half includes interactivity, between reader and author as well as among readers. When reporters quote anonymous sources, it's a dead end. And especially with the recent revelations of just how often reporters merely repeat conflicted interest sources, without skepticism, qualification or even a hint that they're not authoritative, those dead ends kill trust sooner or later.
Newspapers are mostly reprinters of others' writing. Standing alone, they've successfully hid the origins of their product, an artifact of the medium. Now people have gotten used to the Internet's exposure of the news reporting process. Newspapers can finally drop their pretense, now that they're forced, and leverage their accumulated wisdom, discipline, and internal communities. Or they can die as dead as the trees on which they're printed.
--
make install -not war
The decline percentage is misleading as well. The MORE important figure to go with (IMHO) is advertiser decline, which is not readily published.
In the last 6 months, I have received more phone calls from my ad people at the local radio station, cable network, newspaper, coupon clipper and movie theaters that I used to advertise in. One of the ladies earned mid 6 figures just 5 years ago, this year she's considering bankruptcy.
I feel a little responsible in hurting the ad industry in my region. When I found out that most of my ad sales people bought through the Internet the same items I sell, I thought twice about what they were selling me. I asked myself this basic question: What do I do with the product I am advertising through?
TV ADS: PVR skip. RADIO ADS: Change station. COUPON CLIPPER: Throw in trash. NEWSPAPER: Never buy. MOVIE THEATER ADS: Show up 10 minutes after start.
I started to tell this to other businesses in my area. Now, when new sales people come through the store, I tell my managers to tell the sales people we only buy advertising from sales people who shop at our store for at least a year. Guess how many ads we run now?
If you think newspapers are dying, try the periodicals industry. More and more periodicals I used to read seem to have become strictly advertising for one massive dotcom. One "trade" magazine I used to read had 70% of its ads from one megadistributer that owns about 100 brand names.
Newspaper publishers seem to be making the same kind of errors as the record industry. They seem to be overvaluing their product and treating obvious benefits of digital distribution as something people have to pay extra for, if possible multiple times.
e will cost you £130 for a year. There's only a 2 week searchable archive available for the hefty cost.
Take the UK national papers, they want the same money for a years subscription than buying a physical product. E.g: http://www.guardian.co.uk/digitaledition/subscrib
Once again I bet they're all scratching their heads wondering why people aren't rushing to sign up.
The original article talked about local papers, which at least in the UK are of poor to laughable quality. A paper containing 90% advertising with a couple of articles making a mountain of some local molehill (with a heavy political bias) is no more appealing online than it is in print.
Ame
I can't speak for anyone else, but I know why I stopped reading the paper and listening to the radio.
1) Internet -- news is a lot more timely and a lot better customized for me. I can customize my content so that topics which interest me are readily available on a single page. I don't have to wade through dozens of pages of advertisement and tear-stained human interest stories that are irrelevant to me.
2) Credibility -- My local newspaper (the Miami Herald) has often run glowing articles when some big company is in the area. E.g., when Microsoft visited some local schools, the Herald ran front page articles full of press releases from Microsoft, yet ignored stories about the issues they were having with schools and donated computers. Not to mention the tech reporter's parroting of Microsoft press releases.
3) Irrelevance -- the newspapers have added to so many special-interest sections that it's largely irrelevant to me, a typical geek who was once a multi-newspaper subscriber.
4) Bland -- They try to appeal to everyone and end up making themselves bland. In some cases it's because they write to a 5th grade level. In others, it's that they are so afraid of alienating a portion of their readership that they won't print anything edgy. I'm not saying that they should become a bigger "New Times" (an alternative area newspaper), but at least cover something else besides the same pseudo-controversial topics... There's an old adage that you're doing a bad job as a journalist if the readership on one side of an issue thinks you're biased. You're doing a great job if people on both sides think you're biased.
I can pay a buck for the Sunday paper and get a tree trunk's worth of printed ads.
And the *only* circular I look through is Best Buy's. My wife looks through Michael's (arts and crafts chain store). That's it.
The giant phone-book-sized Sunday paper is 90% unread/untouched in my house.
Software Wars
The integrity trend downward in news has nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with the new corporate culture that's taken over the newsroom. It's all about profit margins, which means salacious stories about bimbo heiresses. You managed to squeeze in all the liberal-slant myths about the media, yet somehow right-wing hype seems to stick in the average Joe's mind. Wonder where it all comes from since we're not all listening to Rush and Fox?
72% of us thought Iraq planned the 9-11 attacks when we invaded Iraq and the liberal media planted that Bush godsend in our minds?
Maybe the upsurge in right-wing media sources is responsible for the dumbing down of the news?
Yeah, Dan Rather was an idiot for selling us those awfully bad forgeries, but Bush still managed to jump over hundreds of more qualified candidates to get into the Champagne Unit when he barely qualified to fly, still skipped out on Guard duty, still skipped out on his drug test, still didn't fulfill his obligations, still checked "NO" on volunteering for combat duty in Vietnam, and his remaining records still mysteriously burst into flames when he decided to run for office. Don't let one bogus document plant (yes *plant*) discredit the whole story.
Inflammatory posts and ACs go hand-in-hand I guess...
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Years ago somebody did a study on newspaper consoldiation. They found that the second (and third or whatever) newspapers in cities got eaten by the bigger paper or went out of business in pretty much the same way. They dubbed it the death spiral. Basically, the newspaper business guys did the usual business thing (no matter what the editorial slant or quality of the paper): cut costs to make (or increase) profits. The problem was, they did that by cutting value -- cutting sections or reporters or whatever. The readers, seeing less value, left. The advertisers, seeing fewer readers, left too. So they business guys had to cut costs, which they did by cutting value...
There were the exceptions that proved the rule by fighting back with better writing and more value and winning.
It seems to me that the author sees a similar inability to recognize a fundamental change in the value their publication offers in a changing marketplace. Before, things changed for various reasons, but the upshot was that, in all but the biggest cities, the market would only support one newspaper per city. Now, the marketplace is changing again, and the newspaper business guys are again failing to see the change for what it is and how to operate around it or profit from it.
This reinforces my opinion that newspaper business guys may be very intelligent, but they're not very smart. It also reinforces my opinion that the term "newspaper business" should be recognized as an oxymoron. Good reporting is, or should be, antithetical to good business. The fact that somebody latched onto newspapers as an advertising vehicle is probably the worst thing to ever happen to journalism, and it might be that blogs are a return to the pre-let's-make-this-newspaper-a-business days of journalism. Which means that onlines ads in blogs are...Ah well. It was good while it lasted.
Lastly, I have a question for those who think it has to do with the political bent of today's newspapers: Why didn't you just call Rush Limbaugh? It may be that journalistic balance is gone, but that's more likely because the whole country is polarized, not because journalists are natural-born left-wingers. More and more (it seems to me) people only want to see things they know they are going to agree with. Talk radio, blogs, personalized news portals and feeds all reinforce this be allowing people to edit out the opposition before they ever see or hear any of it. The result is that much of the population seems to think that partisan politicians should be the model for intellectual honesty and balance.
I did learn one thing from Rush Limbaugh and his fellow failed wrestling announcers, though: "mega dittoes" is English for "Baaaa."
See ya,
joe f.
Great discussion on this, and while I question some of the points, it's obvious Roblimo put a lot of work into the piece.
What's frustrating is to see so many of the comments from people with such disdain for newspapers. I agree that arrogance, ego and laziness run rampant throughout the industry, but I'd much rather wade through 30 worthless stories in a newspaper to find two really strong pieces of journalism than wade through 50,000 worthless blog entries to find those two pieces of journalism. (Could you honestly say that you could read a newspaper and not learn something?)
And I tend to see all mass media as jumping boards. If I see an interesting topic in a newspaper, it usually leads me to go find out more online. I don't expect a newspaper to have the space, resources or time to report on every article to the depths that all of its readers would want (after all, what's important to me is very likely unimportant to you -- and vice versa). But nowhere other than mass media can I get the breadth of topics that I normally wouldn't be interested in, but that because of the news I suddenly am.
Newspapers fail to understand that. Many see themselves as guardians of information -- one-stop shops for all you need to know. While some are good about pointing out links or other places to go for information, many are hestitant to do this.
I don't have much love for people who get all of their information from mainstream media. But I also can't identify with people who are so closed-minded (or have the time) to get all of their information for niche-specific media.
As for journalists themselves -- I've known quite a few. Many are egocentric, hollier than thou folks who have their own agendas about the news. But most are curious people who have a passion for writing and love the little guy.
Why don't journalists have medical degrees, engineering degrees, law degrees, business degrees or art degrees? Answer me this: If you had your MD (and $100,000 in student debt) would sign on at your local paper for $22,000 a year or at the local hospital for $85,000? Besides, if you agree that newspapers should be launching pads for information, shouldn't stories be written for people who don't understand the latest medical breakthrough? Doctors don't hear about medicines from newspapers. But I'm not going to try to muddle through a medical journal to try to figure out how the new research into amino acids is going to affect me.
A closing thought: One poster made a great comment about a problem with newspapers being the low barriers to entry. I couldn't agree more. What do you think about creating some sort of licensing for journalists? Would that weed out the weak ones, or would it simply add to the air of arrogance that plagues many within the industry?
I'm sure many of you have read Alvin Toffler's book The Third Wave, one of his best books.
:-)
One particular chapter of that book was extraordinarily prophetic--"De-masssifying the Media." In that chapter, Toffler wrote that as communications technologies improve, the age of a few companies completely dominating the dissemination of what you read in newspapers/periodicals, what you hear on radio and sound recordings, and what you see on TV and the movies will come to an end. Since the publication of The Third Wave in 1979, look at what has happened:
1. Videocassette recorders (and increasingly digital video recorders) have pretty much made the idea of prime time meaningless, since recorders allow you to time-shift TV programming to whatever time later you want to watch the program. As a result, instead of wondering what people were saying about all the latest plot revelations in Lost, you can play back your VCR or DVR recording and find out yourself.
2. Pre-recorded home videos--especially since the arrival of the DVD in 1997--has substantially altered movie theater patronage. Except for a few "event" films (e.g., The Lord of the Rings movies) and high-quality screening rooms with THX-certified sound systems and Kodak-certified projectors, who wants to fight the exorbitant price of tickets, the exorbitant price of concessions and the annoyance of other audience members when you can enjoy the movie in peace at home?
3. The development of cheap and powerful desktop computers plus cheaper printing press operations has made it possible to print more magazines for a niche audience, hence the reduction of influence of the major newsmagazines. Look at the magazine stands of any major bookstore nowadays--most of these magazines couldn't exist without today's computer and cheap printing press technology.
4. The rise of proprietary online services in the 1980's and the arrival of the public Internet in the early 1990's has really caused a major revolution in the dissemination of information. We can now disseminate information at breathtaking speeds that makes the major media outlets--even newspapers--look ultra slow in comparison. Also, the public Internet has begun to offer services that could SERIOUSLY cut into newspaper revenue; Craigslist and eBay are doing major end-runs around newspaper classified ads in a big way already, and several Realtor companies have begun to put their public listings of homes for sale online, also a major blow to newspapers.
5. The rise of high-quality cheap camcorders using the MiniDV format has been a huge boon for small-time filmmakers. Why do you think film festivals are discovering many surprisingly talented filmmakers that use these "cheap" equipment to make very good films? And the small-time filmmaker will soon get access to low-cost high-definition camcorders that (in my humble opinion!) by 2008-2009 could equal the US$150,000 digital cameras used by George Lucas for the second and third Star Wars trilogy films. In the long run, this could hurt the power of the major studios because the smaller filmmakers will incur far less overhead costs in terms of production.
All these changes have seriously buffetted the mainstream media, especially in the last ten years. In the case of newspapers, they have to recognize this and start changing their format to recognize that newspapers can be use to write longer, more thoughtful stories. Also, the powerful watchdog capability of users on the Internet from both political Right and Left will start forcing newspapers to write stories that cover both sides of the arguement equally.