Food for thought on a glorious, it’s-good-to-alive Sunday morning is an article by John Honderich in the Toronto Star about the future of newspapers and whether new models can continue to make them viable.
As someone who has spent most of his career in newspapers, and continues to be an avid newspaper reader, I can’t help but wonder whether all the hand-wringing about newspapers is irrelevant. By that, I wonder if the newspaper model – putting text on paper – is becoming a dinosaur; much like the horse and buggy disappeared when the automobile came on the scene.
Yes, newspapers have been around for hundreds of years but that shouldn’t guaranteed their continued existence if “the technology” is becoming antiquated. While it’s interesting to see models being proposed such as publicly-funded newspapers and community-fueled/funded news organizations (Spot.us) as ways to keep newspapers alive, I wonder if they’re ignoring or delaying the inevitable.
If the way people consume information is moving away away from print, maybe the focus should be on user-friendly and innovative ways to embrace digital technology such as the much-vaunted but, to date, unfulfilled concept of electronic paper. Maybe newspapers should accept the fact a growing number of people are consuming information on the Web as opposed to newsprint.
The industry’s evolution means, of course, that new financial models need to be created. This, in turn, will change how reporters are compensated and how much financial ability that news organizations have to produce top-quality journalism. This is where new editorial models will emerge to bolster the industry.
So, what do you think? Am I being too dismissive about newspapers or perhaps cavalier about their viability? Is there a way to save newspapers as we know them, or has their time come?
More: Newsosaur has a post on why newspapers can’t stop the presses, how moving to an all-digital format would have to see half of their editorial staffs eliminated just to turn a modest profit.
Technorati Tags: john honderich, newspapers
4 Comments
There will always be a need for the reporting contained within newspapers, but the format itself (newsprint) will die off soon enough – the transportation and printing costs are too high to be paid for by the rapidly-shrinking advertising base of most daily papers.
Personally, I’d be more than happy to pay $10/month if my local paper (and one of the national ones) would provide categorized RSS feeds of all of their articles. It’s possible to get a limited selection of articles now by RSS, but it would be fantastic if such a service was made available – it doesn’t have to be a completely separate business model, either – the papers could implement such a subscription system without taking away from their other sources of income.
The newspaper platform is dead.
Canadian newspaper and media companies missed it, with RSS.
“They” never got it. Still don’t. “They” don’t understand their own business model, audience aggregation, on the net.
“They” don’t understand it’s my (our) news, not theirs. They don’t see any value in me aggreating my news, from, or better, on their platform and syndicating it.
“They” produce and re-purpose more content, in a commodity market. Then, wonder why there is limited value.
“They” gave away ‘classifieds’. They don’t understand how to monetize ‘free’!
“They”, media companies, which own papers, refused to invest, in or create new business models. Transaction facilitation might be one! Could have been, when ‘they’ had an audience!
Their response to dwindling revenue, cut costs, people, facilities. How does a business grow, by cutting production? Margins may,short term. Business does not!
Independent journalism, an oxymoron, is dead, too. Locked down, like the borders into Gaza, by vested interests, with a web of contacts to support the power of their will, from there to Yonge and Bloor!
Today’s reportage and analysis is agenda driven propaganda. Independent journalism long evisorated by the toxic atmosphere of ‘regulated’, government approved, media monopoly.
Compromised, by vested third party think tank expertise. Manifested, on a local level, by non analytical press conference boosterism, masquardering as journalism.
A neat and tidy, controlled, complex, ‘information vertical’ organized and supported by a shared mutually, vested, beneficial will!
Truth, trust, and transparency is not ‘their’ will! Media and automotive companies, banks, oops I digress!
Perhaps the collapse of the newspaper business, if there ever was such a business, is a metaphor for the disintegration of monopoly?
Hope so!
I recently posted about a journalist in Vancouver who blames bloggers and the internet for journalists losing their jobs.
http://www.thesavvyboomer.com/the_savvy_boomer/2009/01/vancouver-sun-journalists-blames-semiliterate-bloggers-for-all-newspapers-woes.html
I work in media monitoring and we have closed down our print scanning operations and now monitoring print using electronic archives. The people out there reading the information are using electronic version more and more and the future of paper is weak from my perspective.
Other innovative services have filled a void for the consumer looking for the paper look and feel, but in an electronic version there is a BC comp[any named Newspaper Direct that fills that void. Others such as Canwest also sell you their paper in the electronic version as well as many others.
Thr issue right now is that readers are not really willing to dish out moneyu for online content as they were for the newspapers. Also advertisers do not pay as much for online marketing as they did for print.
Some newspapers here in Toronto are basicaly purchassed only for their publicity content (Toronto Sun) more so then their reporting.
Just my two cents
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