Slashdot Mirror
Are Newspapers Doomed?
Ponca City, We love you writes "James Surowiecki has an interesting article in the New Yorker that crystalizes the problems facing print newspapers today and explains why we may soon be seeing more major newspapers filing for bankruptcy, as the Tribune Company did last week. 'There's no mystery as to the source of all the trouble: advertising revenue has dried up,' writes Surowiecki, but the 'peculiar fact about the current crisis is that even as big papers have become less profitable they've arguably become more popular,' with the blogosphere piggybacking on traditional journalism's content. Surowiecki imagines many possible futures for newspapers, from becoming foundation-run nonprofits to relying on reader donations to deep-pocketed patrons. 'For a while now, readers have had the best of both worlds: all the benefits of the old, high-profit regime — intensive reporting, experienced editors, and so on — and the low costs of the new one. But that situation can't last. Soon enough, we're going to start getting what we pay for, and we may find out just how little that is.'"
'For a while now, readers have had the best of both worlds: all the benefits of the old, high-profit regime â" intensive reporting, experienced editors, and so on â" and the low costs of the new one. But that situation can't last. Soon enough, we're going to start getting what we pay for, and we may find out just how little that is.'
really? I thought that vanished in 1999
There has been very little fact checking or true investigation in reporting in quite some time, and I'm afraid you can't blame the internet for that.
Newspapers will not die though. Most of their stories are sourced from the same organizations which source on-line content (reuters, associated press, et al), and they will continue on in their ineptitude and failure to fact check or investigate, as usual.
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Ad revenue cannot and should not sustain newspapers or television. We really need to figure out what is important to have in our society and start ponying up money to support it. I would like to see more money going to services like PBS and NPR to expand that quality of programming into a local printed publication. I have to admit that I very rarely read a paper, but I do listen to NPR pretty much every time I am in the car and I recognize that the bulk of their programming comes from news discovered by print journalists.
Go ahead and tax people for it and give the papers away. If there are no reporters out there to dig up the interesting stories that don't qualify for the sensationalist 10PM news shows then we are in danger of losing that part of our history. It's time people stop thinking about themselves, and making a quick buck on ads by catering to the lowest common denominator and start thinking about what they can do to add value to the quality of life for the entire human race.
This is terrible. You can't put websites at the bottom of the parrot cage!
Newspapers were considered so important to the country that the first amendment to the Constitution preserved the freedom of the press. It's sad that I'll likely live to see the end of newspapers in this country. Most have already lost relevance. It may seem cool to get your news from bloggers but they aren't news sources they just voice opinions they aren't held to any standards. Even broadcast news is all opinion pieces these days. Objective news is a dying thing. Free speech and freedom of the press were separate things in the Constitution for a reason. One is opinion and one is supposed to preserve the right to objective news that isn't controlled by the government. This country would not exist as we know it without newspapers so they deserve more respect than to be viewed as bird cage filler. It'll be a sad day when the last newspaper closes. The founding fathers would be horrified and we should be as well.
internet. Once micropayments came along (which back then was always real soon), everything on the internet was supposed to become pay-for. Every website you visit would deduct a fraction of a penny from your browser or something. This would be "necessary" to pay for inherent costs. What they didn't count on was that on the internet, oftentimes, if someone doesn't provide it free, someone else is willing to step in and grab that audience.
Also, since many newspapers are little more than repackaged AP and Reuters news, looking at the NY Times for guidance - I don't know what their value proposition is supposed to be. This past election cycle, because I paid attention to politics - I have seen how the old media doesn't even pretend to present the world as it is but just their packaged version of it - they do a bad job of reporting things of niche interest - 3rd parties, other people running other than the "top 2" candidates that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, etc.
Considering this, what value do they bring to the table? If they don't carry the most general of news, someone else will. And since they don't cover anything in depth (not every interest in audience, by nature), most easy to find forums, blogs, etc will cover a subject deeper and be more informative.
All I see is someone bickering that their pre-packaged, repackaged jack-of-all-subjects, master-of-none is becoming obsolete by the fact that it's not the pre-1980s anymore when people relied on print to stay informed.
I get two newspapers each week.
One is going broke, one is doing fine.
One is skimmed, one is read front to back.
One is full of AP content, one has no AP content.
One is full of news I have already seen online, one is full of fresh stories.
Most newspapers are trying to churn out stories for the AP, hoping that their (version of the) story gets picked up and brings in some money. Meanwhile they have to pay for the expensive incoming AP stories, which they use liberally in their papers to justify the cost, filling their paper with barely readable, highly edited and condensed, dreck that has been widely available elsewhere.
Newspapers that will survive are covering the stories that no one else is covering.
Investigative newspaper reporting died over a decade ago. Newspapers today are nothing more than a collection of press releases.
The investigative reporters are now almost exclusively online. You no longer need a distribution network, and printing facilities. A good investigative reporter can setup a web site fairly easily, and if he/she is any good, the ad dollars will follow.
Take thetruthaboutcars.com - those guys called the demise of the American autos years ago - way before mainstream media. They were able to perform the in-depth financial analysis that the journalists at major newspapers simply ignored until recently.
Investors know this as well. Not many investors I know read newspapers any more for news. By the time the newspapers report it; the information is almost useless.
Goodbye newspapers. A generation of kids is growing up seeing the newspaper as obsolete as the typewriter.
-ted
Once most of the people who grew up reading newspapers die or just stop reading them, it's inevitable that the print form will cease to exist -- as we know it.
That would be me, then. I grew a broadsheet reader, but I don't bother nowadays. The press try to claim a "gatekeeper" role, filtering the real news from the dross (I see they're still claiming "intensive reporting, experienced editors, and so on"), but they've long since abandoned that. Apart from opinion, all you find in newspapers now is PR releases reprinted almost verbatim and Associated Press reports reprinted almost verbatim (it's fascinating to compare reports of the same incident in different newspapers: big news each paper will put it's own spin on, but mid-range and low level news is often word-for-word the same between newspapers). The only question the editors ask is "will this sell" (more precisely, "will this supply readers who we can sell to advertisers"), which is no more effective as a gatekeeper than the blogger who says "will this entertain my readers". I don't see how the news press can survive; it's only added value for the readers would be investigation, fact checking and real, on-the-ground reporting, and that's expensive (too expensive for the extra readership it attracts). All that's left is pure entertainment -- celeb gossip, pictures of scantily clad young people and amusing factoids pretending to be news. The internet is a threat there, too, but at least it's cheaper. I'm guessing that it's cheaper to send a reporter to a celebrity party than to a war zone?
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This is the primary reason that the newspaper industry must survive. Ad revenue is what supports the media industry (whatever media you choose to pick). Everyone ignores ads to a greater or lesser extent. But it is easier for the publishers to sell companies on the idea that their ads might be seen in a physical media than an on-line media. This is the primary reason that the TV industry is so against the time shifters - be it VCRs or more modern variants. If my commercial is zapped, why should I pay to put it on your show? It's a point that is even harder to sell on-line.
When there is no revenue from ads, the subscribers won't pay a high enough price to cover your operating costs. How many on-line news sources do you actually subscribe to? How many do you subscribe to if the "cost" is nothing more than an on-line registration? I'd guess pretty few. So you are a content leach. That works fine for you, since there are still enough people paying money in print (or cable TV subscriptions, or on-line equivalents) to pay people enough to produce content that they can distribute in its entirety or in reduced form to the on-line world.
If the revenue flow ceases to exist, there isn't going to be much content worth reading. As things become tighter, you can be assured that those providing content will seek to protect it further. The cost of litigation is something that the on-line bloggers haven't had to deal with much yet. You can rest assured it will happen.
Those editors have lots of job functions. I'll be the first to agree that the quality of the newspapers has declined somewhat. The editors might be just as good, but the reporters ability to write correct English has declined. More mistakes are getting through edit. Another important job function is to keep the content fresh. A particular blogger may have an agenda, but if he or she never extends beyond that agenda - do you keep coming back? A third job function is to keep the paper from being sued for libel. That is another litigation expense that the on-line only crowd hasn't had to deal with much yet.
On-line will always have a place. It is convenient to find news about a particular subject during the day when the newspaper is not at hand. But at the end of the day of looking at a computer screen for 8 hours, I'd much rather sit down to a nice local newspaper and a nice global newspaper to read the pieces of news I'm interested in. I personally can't stand the talking heads on TV blathering the same 1 minute sound bite every 15 minutes. I'd much rather skip around and read what I want from print.
....SOMEONE has to create the content. The blogosphere (and hell, even slashdot) mostly points to someone else's content. Joe Blogger isn't going to be doing any in-depth investigations and that is the foundation of journalism. One can look at how superficial how TV journalism is to print journalism...and then realize that the blogosphere offers insight and nothing else.
Content isn't going to come with compensation.
On the other hand, my local paper, run by a chain that publishes a similar paper in about two dozen nearby areas, is thriving, albeit not setting any profitability records.
Local papers have local news and that's what's important to people. It's still a thrill for a parent to see their kid's picture in the local paper. Local merchants need a way to reach local customers.
When the web becomes a truly localized place for most people, then the small papers may disappear. Right now they fill a niche and throughout all of publishing, those are the businesses that are surviving the "onslaught" of the web.
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This ignores the point of the article - that the bedrock, actual "sources" of news such as the NYT are also in dire financial straits. Once they are gone (and by that I don't mean "cease to exist," merely that the quality nosedives because there are fewer investigative journalist slots) then all the secondary news sources you decry - and their readers - will be high and dry. The blogs and forums are just cud-chewers. Somebody still has to do the interviews and take the photos for them to ruminate over.
It may seem cool to get your news from bloggers but they aren't news sources they just voice opinions they aren't held to any standards.
Newspapers haven't had standards at least since the 1970s.
Even broadcast news is all opinion pieces these days.
"Duh." Anyone who watched the insane rush to anoint Barack Obama and the nastiness with which every member of the press treated the other side (not to mention the witch-hunt mentality towards the few actually neutral reporters who dared to ask Obama/Biden the TOUGH questions) will realize this.
Of course, there's plenty of other evidence why this was the case.
Objective news is a dying thing.
Again, "Duh." The populace hasn't demanded balanced news, so it's dying. The recent push for the reinstitution of the "Fairness Doctrine" by the Dems is not really about "fairness", it's about their trying to take a stab at media outlets that don't carry their party line; you can be damn sure they would claim the "big" news networks are already "fair" and so "don't need changing" while they try to censor out anyone that doesn't agree with them.
Free speech and freedom of the press were separate things in the Constitution for a reason. One is opinion and one is supposed to preserve the right to objective news that isn't controlled by the government.
"The right to objective news that isn't controlled by the government" - sadly, the idea of "objective news" is nigh impossible to find. There are so many ways to tilt a story:
- Weasel words
- Incendiary words
- Selective sourcing
- Abuse of statistics ("counting the hits, forgetting the misses", etc)
And that's just a few.
It'll be a sad day when the last newspaper closes.
Funny, I think the opposite. Newspapers will either adapt, or they won't. I'd rather have a lot more, smaller newspapers (and local papers seem to do just fine, because they can get locally-targeted advertising) competing and catching each other's mistakes than one big conglomerate that simply wants to indoctrinate, lie to, deceive, manipulate, and tilt the story over and over and over again.
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