This Week in Saving Newspapers

NYT: David Carr thinks the only way for newspaper publishers to rescue themselves might be some good, old-fashioned, pre-Sherman Antitrust Act collusion. In his scenario, owners get together and agree to stop putting their content free on the web. Sure, it's probably illegal, he says, but "[i]t's worth remembering that the regulatory apparatus governing the industry was developed back when newspapers were the dominant local ad medium, with very little competition."

NYT: Thinking along completely different lines, the Los Angeles Daily News, a MediaNews Group paper, is about to start offering "individuated news" -- a.k.a. "I-news" -- tailored specifically to the interests of each reader. It will be delivered via a proprietary printer installed in subscribers' homes.

Ad Age: Simon Dumenco would probably not be keen on the I-news printer, judging from what he has to say about the e-reader Hearst is developing. "[M]edia executives just can't stop clinging to the concept of news as a thing -- news as a discrete product that can and should be purchased like milk or cereal or any other package good," he writes. Instead, he wants them to think of news as a service; his suggestion is a bundle of stories customized for reading on the iPhone, sold as part of a monthly phone plan.

CSM: Or, hey, newspapers could just try to squeeze some free labor out of college professors. "Suppose that 30 or 40 prominent research universities issued a joint statement, urging their faculty to publish in popular venues -- and promising to consider such articles in promotion and salary decisions," writes Jonathan Zimmerman. "Believe me, you'd see more and more professors writing for the newspaper." Of course, you'd also see more and more newspaper writers losing out on actual paychecks.

Comments

[exNewspaper:]

Unlike other industries, the economic impact would be minimal if newspapers just went away.

Mar 10 07:35 AM

[jay fredric...:]

The Wall Strret Journal seems to be doing something right. More national and international news,and some very good sports stories. I think this paper is becoming the first and only read in many homes and offices across America. This paper appears to be giving readers what they want.

Jay Fredrickson
i-95south.com

Mar 10 08:17 AM

[Personanondata:]

David Carr's article wasn't insightful or realistic however he did touch on a key issue at the very when he said "What is under attack is the fundamental machinery of the Fourth Estate, not just the local newspapers that some love to hate and others, including many young consumers, are indifferent to."

This is an important issue I addressed the same day in more expansive detail. "Suggestions newspapers charge for content ignores deeper questions about their value proposition, the fourth estate and democracy". I suggest firstly that simply charging for content isn't enough and secondly the significant role the press can play as observers and investigators has been eroded and undermined by the misfortunes of the traditional news gathering organizations. More here:
personanondata.blogspo...
(Coincidentally I even linked to Portfolio).

Mar 10 09:50 AM

[NP Refugee:]

I grieve the death of the 4th estate. Talk about being too important to fail...

Like watching the Senate go away, or something. Removing an all-important leg of the stool. They are too important to democracy. Don't count on radio, tv, or Inet to do what the papers do. I just wish they would take their responsibility more seriously and report with less bias and a mission of fairness over their own political ambitions. Of course, it's been that way since the 1800s, so it's unlikely to change anytime soon.

I don't mind the collusion thing, but nobody seems to be talking about the arcane cross-ownership rules. Let the NPs work with and own TV stations. Both are in real peril. Allowing cross-ownership could be a real shot in the arm. The FCC, through the cross-ownership rules, imposes barriers that are not only unnecessary, but they also are incremental acid eating into the 1st amendment.

Many forget that most television stations were begun by newspapers in the first place.

Several newspaper companies have sought to have the cross-ownership rules overturned, yet, those in power have no incentive to have the watchdogs get stronger. They use the unique, independent voice argument as though media is limited in the same way it was in the 1950s. They're really just fine with being able to control the press.

That's the story that's not being told in this whole argument. We should certainly start there. By having one news department for television stations and newspapers, the cost would be contained and the reporting might be better--but the goal at this point should probably be existence.

And exNewspaper is obviously bitter, lacking understanding that most of the news that is read over radio, put into television newscasts, and blogged, all comes on the backs of an editorial dept somewhere. Without newspaper editorial departments, democracy is toast... and the bloggers would have to become investigative reporters. I love the blogs, but let's face it; they would have to put on clothes and get out and do the work of the newspapers in order to have any sort of future in a post-newspaper world. They would face the same economic challenges in a world of entitlement, where everything on the Internet is free. Who would pay their travel expenses? How would they be compensated?

I so want to see newspapers survive, but they have so many fundamental flaws that are deeply rooted that anything short of radical metamorphosis will be woefully short of the necessary transformation required to survive.

Mar 10 11:00 AM

[Mad Hedge F...:]

There are many more to go. Looks like the San Francisco Chronicle may be about to join the dustbin of history. The industry rag, Editor and Publisher, says that the privately owned Hearst Corporation has given the venerable paper an ultimatum to cut costs or close. The 150 year old Chronicle lost $50 million last year. Of course, this may all be a ploy just to beat up one of the last surviving unions, but they have made a similar threat to their paper in Seattle. Ironically, Hearst acquired the Chronicle and dumped the San Francisco Examiner in 2,000, which was then put on a crash diet and made profitable by its new owners. If the Chronicle goes it will join the Philadelphia Enquirer which went under last week, and the soon to be shut Christian Science Monitor. Google has been eating their lunch for years. It is tough to chop down a forest to make paper, get a union to print it, and manually distribute your product, and then compete against a one man email blast on costs. If the Chronicle goes it will be survived by a much smaller SFGate.com, one of the most successful web based newspaper portals out there. There could be a ninth earning save by a surprise buyer. But moguls willing to lose money just to promote a political view are a dying breed. Rupert Murdoch has been the only recent buyer of newspapers, and something tells me that a match with the Chronicle would not exactly be one made in Heaven. As a long time print journalist myself, I am sad to see newspapers go. But you can’t exactly sit like Denmark’s old King Canute and order the tide to stop rising.

Mar 10 12:26 PM

[desicon:]

They are colluding on the content anyway, why not collude and make content unavailable freely. World has moved past news papers. Bye bye NYT.

Mar 10 04:11 PM

[Gedankonomist:]

Most of these media organs are controlled by a few elite individuals. As it was in 1915, so it is today:

"In March, 1915, the J.P. Morgan interests . . . got together 12 men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select the most influential newspapers in the United States and sufficient number of them to control generally the policy of the daily press of the United States.

These 12 men worked the problem out by selecting 179 newspapers, and then began, by an elimination process, to retain only those necessary for the purpose of controlling the general policy of the daily press throughout the country. They found it was only necessary to purchase the control of 25 of the greatest papers. The 25 papers were agreed upon; emissaries were sent to purchase the policy of these papers; an agreement was reached; the policy of the papers was bought, to be paid for by the month; an editor was furnished for each paper to properly supervise and edit information regarding the questions of preparedness, militarism, financial policies, and other things of national and international nature considered vital to the interests of the purchasers.

This contract is in existence at the present time, and it accounts for the news columns of the daily press of the country. . . ."

(Congressional Record, Second Session, Sixty-Fourth Congress, Volume LIV, p. 2947, Remarks, Oscar Callaway)

Mar 10 04:26 PM