I sell the morning papers sir my name is Jimmy Brown
Everybody knows that I’m the newsboy of the town
You will hear me yelling “Morning Star” as I run along the street
I have no hat upon my head no shoes upon my feet – by A.P. Carter
And maybe no more newspapers to sell?
The most authoritative newsletter covering the newspaper industry issued a gloomy prognosis for the business and then, tellingly, went out of business.
Many newspapers in the largest markets already “have passed the point of opportunity” to save themselves, says the Morton-Groves Newspaper Newsletter in its farewell edition [.pdf]. “For those who have not made the transition [by now], technology and market factors may be too strong to enable success.”
“Sadly, the ‘straw man of failure’ provides a barrier that industry stakeholders have not been able to shake,” they write. “Instead of making the technology, personnel, marketing and product investments critical for success, industry leaders have accepted that desirable circulation levels are not sustainable and declines are inevitable.”
These folks made this a self-fulfilling prophecy by shutting down. I don’t agree with their prediction; but, certainly those newspaper owners and publishers who don’t get their act seriously onto the Web and into the 21st Century will be left too far behind to sustain what remains.
Like book publishers, they fear electronic copy will destroy their print business. Why should a book download cost as much as a hard bound copy at suggested retail? Half of my newspaper goes in the trash without being read. Granted a lot of that is advertisement.
Isn’t most of their production done electronicly? Why not put it up on the web? And save a few trees? I would think they could reshape it to fit on a computer screen… or, Apple TV… yup… you could read the ‘paper’ on your wide screen TV..
I’d subscribe…
DFW has that great unbiased newspaper, the Dallas Morning News. Totally unbiased since it’s the only paper in town 😉 But they’re rather web savvy and have a large on-line presence. I still find it easier to carry a paper around when I’ve got to sit and wait somewhere, so maybe, just maybe, this one will survive.
I still like newsprint, but I’m almost sixty. I never see the younger guys at my office reading a newspaper; and my 18 year old son and his friends? Forgettaboutit!
Sorry, I can’t see putting an LCD monitor on the bottom of the birdcage.
J/P=?
OK, so at the moment, a paper newspaper is more portable and causes less eyestrain. And you can’t get that cozy feeling that you get when you’ve got the pages all open and you feel enveloped in it. But that’s pretty much it for the advantages.
Such a dire prediction, and yet the smaller local papers – many of them published only once or twice a week – seem to be thriving in this environment, with their local orientation. It’s the big-media dailies that are falling, and not all of those. Some do have a good presence. San Francisco’s Gate, the San Jose Merc-News come to mind – some of their best content is web rather than paper oriented.
The big-city papers in trouble are the ones using big-media strategies that flopped with local readers. Oh golly, wotta loss.
#4
I’m getting 90% of my news from the net and 10% from reading paper versions (never buy them though). But for books… 90% paper version and 10% ebooks. Books are easier to handle I guess. 🙂
Who the H… cares if all of the newspapers on earth burned to a golden crisp and disappeared from the face of the earth?!
Actually, TJ – #7 – what sent me over to this link in the 1st place was a post at O’Reilly’s radar about troubles at the SF Chron.
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/03/sf_chronicle_in.html
10 – Wow. It’s worse than I thought. I guess Herb Caen was born at just the right time, rode his career, said goodbye and died in time not to see it happen. I’m old enough to find that sad.
I stand corrected, then. And yet – who was the fellow who publishes a local paper, somewhere around Warren in north-central Virginia I think, who posted here that his paper is having no trouble? The same was true for an old friend of my family, who published a paper in Winters, Calif. for many years, then sold it (“for a ridiculously high amount, not that I’m complaining,” he told me) in order to retire in style. Papers like those really are still thriving.
It is at least partly the local focus, as the Virginia publisher said. And maybe the other key is your observation about the self-fulfilling prophecy. When you wind a business down, the business winds down, duh. Strictly local papers may simply not have that Failed In Metropolis mentality.
9: Not me. I’m legally blind and don’t like my fingertips turning black. Screw em’.
Soon they’ll have low priced flash drive laptops that will be very light and run at least all day on one charge. That development will crush big media and kick big telecom in the nuts too.
In my city both major papers have hired street people to give away ultra light versions of the thick paper. Most people walking by are refusing them.
Big media now reminds me of big auto in the seventies. except now the Toyota’s are free while big auto thinks they can charge for their clunkers.
There are as many reasons as newspapers for the trouble’s they are having. A couple of the big ones for the larger, more nationally known papers is that they have over the years become asscociated with a particular political mindset(either conservative or liberal) and are less balanced than they once seemed. This means you lose 30 ro 40 % of your readership in one fell swoop.
I don’t claim to know the internals of the Washington Post, but the NYT and the LAT, the Boston Globe and several other big name papers are in deep doo doo. They are having to cut staff, and divest outside holdings to keep the papers running.
Phoenix is a good example….we went from having 2 large daily’s and several smaller papers to having 1 large daily, that doesn’t even try to match itself to the readership. The smaller local papers are doing fine, why??….because they tend to the state and local news, and only do national in passing. They also have editorial pages that are aimed at their core audience or balanced….unlike the Republic. When Gannett bought the Republic out, it started going more national, dropped conservative and moderate editorial writers(leaving 1 or possibly 2 of each, verses 8 or 9 liberal) and readership started dropping like panties at a frat party.
I like newspapers, even though I get most of my news from online, I tend to read well put together online news from established newspapers, then sites like BBC or Fox News.
I think the biggest problem for papers is being absorbed into large media conglomerates. The local paper is a profit and cost center for the media co., they have no interest at all in running a newspaper. Where I live, the local paper was bought 20 years ago by a national chain, that was bought by another national chain, that was bought by another national chain. The local paper (the Daily Pilot) still exists, but has only the most ephemeral local coverage.
This leaves me with two main choices, the Orange County register (only slightly to the right of Francisco Franco, who, you might recall, is still vigilant in his right to remain dead) but get coverage of local clubs and theater companies, or I could read OC Weekly (the local tabloid, similar to the Bay Guardian, the LA Weekly and other metro weekly papers. This paper is good for rock and roll and other hipster issues but does not have the coverage of local politics, etc.
Or, I could read the Los Angeles Times. Now the times is one of the great newspapers of the world, it’s true. But since being acquired by a a national media conglomerate, it has really lost it’s soul.
The best thing about a newspaper is that once printed, the ink stays the same on the page as long as it holds together. Electronic publishing can be rewritten as needed.
We are at war with Eurasia
We have always been at war with Eurasia
We will always be at war with Eurasia
Revanchism aside, as a kid it would be a big deal if my picture ended up in the paper. (Local Scouts clear vacant lot–Boy Magician appears at Kiwanis Lunceon) etc. The local paper was a habit I got early. It’s an excuse to find out who your mayor is, who you local school board are, and what is happening with the funnies. I travel so much these days that I no longer take a local paper (if we go out to breakfast, there’s always one on the table as a treat) But wherever I am in the world–there’s the Manchester Guardian, or the International Herald Tribune, or the ubiquitous USA today, or the Australian, or the Moscow Times.
And it’s always an eye opener–stuff I would never find out on the internet. The world seen from the facet of place.
Enjoy place. Savor it. Remember what it is like.
Before it’s gone.
One thing I will miss is the comics section. Now that’s an experience that’s hard to replicate on a PC.
While newspapers still have some money to work with — they should pool a few million dollars and launch a serious initiative to save the newspaper.
Could each paper be custom printed for each home? Maybe delivered via WiFi to a flexible reader? A nationwide consortium of regional papers with a shared front section? Firebombing Ebay and Craigs List? (kidding)
Newspapers have been around for four centuries and it would be a shame to lose them.
Today’s News: Alex Jones saids beware of the Billionaire and the Millionaire Jewish people in your community, they worship the devil. They have infiltrated your government and work inside your government to turn your kids into devil worshipers. They are all in the Illuminati devil worshipers cult. Buy Guns and form your own militia groups to kill them all. Create a neighborhood watch in your country and in your town to track the Jewish people’s activity. These Jewish people worship Lucifer and they are there to destroy your country. They hide themselves in companies so they can do insider trading and bankrupt other good companies in your country. The Evil Jewish people have also poisoned your food and water supply just so they can make money from you by selling the cure. They are run by the Rothschild family, Rockerfeller family, Percy family, Rosenberg, Breakspear, Farnese, and aldobrandini family. Tell everyone.