At Least ‘The Rebirth of News’ Sounds More Upbeat Than ‘Who Killed The Newspaper?’

Philip M. Stone May 20, 2009 Follow on Twitter

It seems when the ‘Economist’ news weekly speaks about the news industry a lot of people pay attention, so its editorial last week that “The Internet is killing newspapers and giving birth to a new sort of news business” garnered a lot of attention just as did its stark headline in August, 2006, ‘Who Killed The Newspaper – the most useful bit of the media is disappearing. A cause for concern, but not for panic.”

The “shock” impact of this year’s story is not near as great as its 2006 story – perhaps back then it was still unthinkable that newspapers would actually disappear but since then we have had Seattle, Denver, and bankruptcies for such companies as Tribune, so today when some oracle tells us that newspapers are doomed it’s almost something we accept as fact although the die-hards out there will still claim “never, never, never.”

Back in 2006 The Economist wrote, “Newspapers have not yet started to shut down in large numbers, but it is only a matter of time. Over the next few decades half the rich world’s general papers may fold.” For its time that was pretty explosive.

And back then it snidely caught the flow of what publishers were up to. “Having ignored reality for years, newspapers are at least doing something. In order to cut costs, they are already spending less on journalism. Many are also trying to attract younger readers by shifting the mix of their stories towards entertainment, lifestyle, and subjects that may seem more relevant to people’s daily lives than international affairs and politics are.”

And it concluded back then that the “crumbling Fourth Estate” would not be as harmful to democracy as some might fear. It reminded us that democracy “has already survived the huge television-led decline in circulation since the late 1950s. It has survived as readers have shunned papers and papers have shunned what was in stuffier times thought of as serious news. And it will surely survive the decline to come.”

So that was then, what’s The Economist’s take today? It reminds us of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s quote that if the San Francisco Chronicle was to disappear, “People under 30 won’t even notice.” To be fair to the mayor he later amended the remark to say they wouldn’t miss the print edition, but they would miss the web site.

And that seems to be the point. News is expanding its availability, not contracting – there may not be so many print newspapers around but there are far more news sources out there than ever before so why worry if newspapers disappear? More news sites mean we’re better off, right? No.

Why no? Because all of us in the news business know, even if some, particularly broadcasters, don’t admit it out loud, that so much of the news that is reported each day is regurgitated from the morning newspaper. Sure, others taking that newspaper story as a lead will build upon it during the day with fresh angles, but it is the newspaper that told them about it in the first place. Anybody can set up a news web site but the old “content is king” still holds true and it is newspapers that used to provide so much of that news for other media to pick up on. Other media are cutting back their staffs too, so as newspapers report less so does everyone else, even if there are more sites out there reporting the news.

To see how bad things are getting everyone should take a read of the Politico article on what is happening at the Baltimore Sun. Sad, really sad, but a sign of our times. And then take a look at what is happening in Tucson where Gannett has closed the print edition of The Citizen with its 60 staff fired but is maintaining the web site with two full time employees and six temporary staff. And that web site is supposed to produce the news report that the newspaper did, even with reader contributions? Who is fooling whom?

The way The Economist sees it, newspapers are financially hurting as they transition from paper to electronic, although that sounds like print will last only as long as it takes for that transition to complete. The Economist admits that newspapers have yet to find a business model that works online so it concludes either the amount of news must shrink or readers must pay more as some do at The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times. Free content online doesn’t work, The Economist says because there’s not enough online advertising to pay for it and it sees no reason that free and paid can’t co-exist online just as they do together in print.

This brings to mind the recent contrarian view on paid online newspaper content from Jack Matthews, chief executive officer at Fairfax Digital Media in Australia who described it as “like stuffing toothpaste back into the tube.”

What no one doubts is that great change is upon the newspaper industry. There probably won’t be as many newspapers around as there once were and the product most of them put out will be a far cry from what we were used to reading and what we deserve.

Will newspapers disappear – the easy answer is no. The more difficult question to answer given all the editorial cuts is whether those that remain will be worth reading?