Writing Our Obit
April 10, 2008 on 3:49 pm | In Local, Media |
Are newspapers really on the ropes? I emerged from two days last week in Albany at a newspaper convention wondering whether the imminent death of print media has been greatly exaggerated. My conclusion: it’s not an exaggeration, especially for the big guys.
As was the case at last year’s NYPA convention, there were some long faces after a series of seminars predicting the painful decline of what’s black and white and red all over. And for good reason.
The approximate figures I heard for 2007: ad revenue (classified and display) at the print divisions of U.S. newspapers declined by almost 10 percent at a time when several major events (e.g. the Iraq war and the run-up to the presidential primaries) no doubt increased the appetite for news nationwide.
But online advertising at those same companies grew by 20%. At about 10%, Web advertising is still a small portion of overall ad revenue, but it is the only sector that consistently shows growth.
True, most print divisions are still profitable, but their stocks are down all over the place because of the dismal projections of future performance. Others newspaper companies such as the dreadful Journal Register Company, which owns just about every other newspaper in this neck of the woods except for the LJ, have taken on so much debt that they can scarcely make their payments.
According to the NYT, the JRC, which is the fifth largest newspaper company in the U.S., may be teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.
What are we to make of this? The migration away from print has not only begun but it’s accelerated to the point that there’s a 30% difference between the growth rates of print and web. That would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.
Sure, there are people who hate the thought of going online to get news. They revel in the cumbersome task of opening a broadsheet publication, thumbing through the flimsy pages and getting ink on their fingers.
One thing I can say for sure about those people: they will die and be replaced by a generation of digital natives for whom buying a newspaper will be as alien as walking on the moon is to me.
And there are those 50-something digital immigrants like me who rarely read papers anymore. The only print papers I read are my own and The Hartford Courant on Sunday mornings. Before last year, I leafed through a paper almost every day of my adult life.
I guess the question I ask is: should we care? There will no doubt be a market for several years to come for print editions like the LJ — those small town weeklies and dailies people love to pick up and buy multiple copies of when their granddaughter’s picture is on the front page. But will our presses still be rolling in 10, 15, 20 years?
If newspapers survive, it will most likely be as content providers on the web. After all, the papers do most of the heavy lifting that quality journalism demands. But think of how silly it now seems to do the following everyday:
Chop down trees and manufacture newsprint; ship that paper to media companies; layout copy, graphics and ads; paste them on a board; photograph the pages; burn the image into a plate coated with ink; run paper off on giant energy-hogging presses; fold, collate and stack the papers into bundles; truck them off to distribution points where they are then driven to drop-off points and picked up by yet more links in the chain and finally delivered to their destination.
And the news in that time- and energy-wasting product is already at least 12 hours old. If you like the feel of the Gray Lady in your hands, enjoy it while you can.
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Remember a few years ago when people predicted the end of books in favor of e-books? Sure, it sounded great: carry around a library in your pocket. But in practice, it really didn’t work. Not to mention that the devices were expensive (and still are). People like the feeling of turning a page to read that next sentence. Sure, plenty of people read e-books. But many more people actually drive to a bookstore, pick up a book, then sit down and read it. It’s as much a tactile experience as a visual and mental experience. I love getting a new book. Hearing the spine crack open for the first time is one of the best sounds in the world.
The same can be said for newspapers. Sure, plenty of people get their news online. I do. I read the LJ every week, albeit online, but I do live in Rochester NY. But I think that tactile and auditory experience of turning a broadsheet page will keep newspapers going. Perhaps newspapers will change their focus: become more locally-oriented, like the LJ and it’s sister papers. Only time will tell, and newspapers have certainly stood the test of time so far.
Comment by Amy — April 10, 2008 #
Amy,
A point well taken. However, books never faced the kind threat faced by print newspapers. You are a case in point.
Rather than getting a mail subscription to the LJ print edition and having your paper arrive a couple days late, you get most of it it free online from Rochester and on the same day it’s published.
This is happening a lot to newspapers all across the country. We have to reorient our business model. Right now, most of our advertisers still have more confidence in the ability of print to reach their target audiences. But that attitude is bound to change.
Plus, another potential threat to all newspapers is new online start-ups to compete directly with the papers.
Take the LJ, for example. If someone wanted to start a print newspaper to compete directly with us, I’m sure it would require an up-front investment in the seven figures — a daunting amount given the limited advertising opportunities in the NWC.
But I’d wager to say starting an online paper would cost a fraction of that amount — perhaps only $100k-$200k. So the threat is at least two-pronged — from the news sources already out there and those that could spring up almost overnight.
Comment by Terry — April 11, 2008 #
A sad commentary, indeed, Terry. For the past month or so I’ve been reading the NYT on-line. I still buy the Sunday Times and read it as I’ve done for decades. But even that isn’t as enjoyable as it was for me for decades. Probably because so much of it’s old news, stuff I’ve been exposed to on TV and the internet already.
I wonder what impact this all is having on journalism schools. I majored in journalism and looked forward to writing for newspapers. How many 20 year olds are thinking that way these days?
Comment by Terrence McCarthy — April 11, 2008 #
I don’t believe anyone can discount the rise of the internet news-delivery model and its impact on the 24-hour news cycle.
I think Terry makes a good point that the small-town weekly will most likely never die for the obvious reasons, but the future looks far more bleak for the larger-scale print newspapers. How can a once- or twice-daily print edition compete with a constantly-updated CNN.com or WSJ.com? More ironically, to what extent is the print New York Times cannabalized by its internet version?
I find the comparison with e-books inapt. The experience of reading a book, and the motivations and fulfillments therein, are radically different than those of the news-seeker, to whom timing, accuracy and immediate relevance are everything.
Comment by JJ — April 11, 2008 #
I have anywhere from eight to ten news web pages open when on-air at WHDD.
But I still ahve subscriptions to both the Waterbury Republican and the Lakeville Journal.
I guess I still need the reassurance of the paper in my hands at least once a day, and its great to have the Journal to thumb thru for a week….
Bye the way…how much energy is wasted with the 300+ news channels…probably more than what it takes to produce papers!
Comment by Marshall Miles — April 11, 2008 #
I read several foreign papers on line, but like to have a real newspaper in my hand to refer back to if I want. Also it’s a lot easier to clip out an article than fire up the printer!
I grew up in a household where we got the Des Moines Tribune every day. (That was the edition of the Register that was sent by mail to out of town subscribers.) We also had three newspapers from the three county seats in our area for our best local news. My hometown had a weekly.
This was in the 40s and 50s long before the internet. However, it is interesting to know that all of these papers are still being published.
Comment by Carolyn McDonough — April 11, 2008 #
There will always be newspapers. (At least I hope so since I work at one.) There will always be blacksmiths, too; there just aren’t anywhere near as many of them as there were before the automobile was invented.
I noticed this week, Terry, that with the Courant’s shrinkage, your paper’s page is now a full two columns wider. Can you give any insight into why the LJ has swum against the industry tide and stayed so wide? Perhaps the uniqueness is one reason why its future is brighter than it is for big papers.
I, too, like reading a newspaper that’s in my hands and portable (taking a laptop into the john isn’t quite the same!), but I don’t know anyone under 30 (40?) who doesn’t prefer reading on-screen. That’s what they’ve grown up with.
Here is my biggest worry about the demise of newspapers. Yes, they have been guilty of arrogance and abuse in the past. But they also have played a big role in the preservation of our freedoms. Advertising equals revenue, which equals profitability, which is what allows our popular media to challenge the institutions in our society (government, big business, etc.) that need challenging. As advertising revenues splinter into thousands of outlets, will that leave us without any media that are large enough to do the type of investigative journalism that is so essential?
Comment by Steve Barlow — April 11, 2008 #
Steve,
I very much share your concerns. My hope is that when newspapers abandon print, then their production and distribution costs will decline to the point that they can still afford strong news staffs.
As for why the LJ swims against the “width tide,” it’s always been my understanding that our board of directors likes the quirky but expansive girth and that with our small economy of scale, only tiny savings could be realized by slimming down anyway.
It does make our papers stand out on the shelves, doesn’t it?
Comment by Terry — April 12, 2008 #
Nobody talks much about Marshall MacLuhan (did I even spell his name right?) — the guru of media in the 1960s — who referred to “hot” media and “cool” media. (The temperature of the media has something to do with personal involvement, but I can’t remember what it is.)
I mention this for two reasons. First, I find that I really enjoy getting the LJ in my hands every Thursday — there is something about turning the pages, seeing what kinds of surprises are there, who I know on the Police Blotter, etc., that seeing the RSS feed or TCEXTRA simply cannot replace. I have to say that I am really involved in the paper when I get it in a way that I am never involved in on-line news sources — which also have an “edited for the web” quality about them that print doesn’t.
Here’s number 2: Does “being in print” make a difference? There is absolutely no doubt in my mind, and I offer two bits of evidence. (1) Last summer, the LJ printed some stories about the summer soccer program Trinity Lime Rock runs — and our attendance more than doubled over the previous summer. (2) The week preceding Holy Week this year, due to a production error, Trinity’s ad for Holy Week services didn’t run. We had dynamite music that week — the complete Byrd’s 1610 “Saint John’s Passion” and parts of Bach’s B-Minor Mass, both with hired soloists supplementing our already-respectable choir — and, without print advertising, attendance was embarrassingly small for the Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services at which they were performed.
Is the web a substitute for print? Not around here, anyway. Trinity’s website (www.trinitylimerock.org) gets respect on a national level, and logs between 50 - 100 visitors a day (considerably more some times of year)(tracked via Google Analytics). We’re even visited by people who Googled the names of other local churches that don’t have websites and found ours instead! (The visitor numbers for the website are in addition to visitors to our Vicar’s blog: trinitylimerock.blogspot.com.)
Virtually every person who sets foot in our little church mentions the website and the weblog. But the on-line visibility clearly didn’t suffice when the print ad didn’t run.
Now, that is a long way of saying I think that regardless of what MacLuhan said, print — at least local print — is “hot” media and the web is “cool” media. Considering that Trinity’s demographic is younger than most other churches in this area, and thus is presumably more oriented toward electronic communications, I’d say that the LJ has a secure place around here for the foreseeable future!
Comment by Geoff Brown — April 12, 2008 #
Steve, as someone under 30 (I’m 28), I do prefer reading an actual page. Staring at a computer screen is akin to staring at a lightbulb, and it hurts after a while. The simple fact is that on my laptop I have access to thousands of news sources, while a newspaper or magazine offers me access to only one.
Comment by Amy — April 13, 2008 #
Geoff, that was the point I was trying to make in my first post. The LJ and its sister papers survive because they are more community oriented than current events oriented. As a weekly, it would be virtually impossible to be the latter.
Comment by Amy — April 13, 2008 #
as long as we’re touting the wonders of the web, you can link to mcluhan himself in a video clip explaining hot and cold media.
http://archives.cbc.ca/arts_entertainment/media/clips/342-1818/
For those of you who would rather read than watch:
McLuhan says television is a cool or low definition medium, offering little information but the user participates with most of his senses.
He explains that a book is a hot or high definition medium, presenting the user with lots of information at a level of lower sensory participation.
Comment by cynthia — April 14, 2008 #
Cynthia –
THANKS!! I guess the LJ has advanced from being a mere newspaper to being a book! Or maybe the times have degraded books to being newspapers. At any rate, I’m gratified that I remembered something as antique as McLuhan!
Thanks for starting this one off, Terry!
Comment by Geoff Brown — April 14, 2008 #