When News People Lose Common Sense

Financial Times editor Lionel Barber predicted that “almost all” news organizations will be charging in a year just because they need to. Meanwhile, former McClatchy (MNI) news exec Howard Weaver thinks that news orgs should get, oh, say, 10 percent of Google (GOOG) et al’s revenue because they, oh, should.

Amazing how news people lose their sense when they talk about news.

Let’s substitute GM for newspapers in this discussion.

Would Barber ever suggest that GM would charge more just because it needs to, with no consideration of the market forces and its competition? Would Weaver ever suggest that GM should get 10 percent of Toyota’s (TM) or Zipcar’s revenue just because, oh, it should?

I just spent two good days at Best Buy (BBY) headquarters in Minneapolis talking about What Would Google So? and it was so refreshing to be in the company of a company facing the future bravely without whining like newspaper people do. One executive quizzed me, puzzled about why newspapers are so resistant to change. We talked about their sense of entitlement.

In what other industry do companies feel entitled to revenue just because they used to have it or they think they deserve it because of who they are?

But newspapers think that companies that served their customers better – Google or craigslist – owe them money because they lost those customers for serving them badly and ripping them off for years. They think that government owes them protection via copyright law (shall we look up how those papers editorialized about protectionist tariffs?).

It makes me look at the FT’s coverage of other industries in a different light. A dim one.

Later note: Please see Howard Weaver in the comments section of my blog, who says I got wrong what he was saying.

See also: John Temple tells newspaper people to stop blaming Google. Mark Potts tells Barber why he’s wrong.

Later: Like Temple, Chris Tolles does a better job than I do answering Weaver.

Comments

[Joe:]

The media / newspapers are having another problem. Their past
pricing strategies are catching up with them. Good point about
entitlement.
When using "ad rates up circulation down" as searchword Google turns up a 2004 article at the first page. It tells of the CO. papers, Rocky Mountain News included, of circulation down 11,6% and ad rates up 189%.
Unsurprisingly, the RMN went bust four years later, a long time
though, considering all that. It is an extreme example , similar pricing strategies (attempts of maximum ad revenue) can be found all over the world, actually.
It is both funny and scandalous how media are now doing all
they can, I am sure they are attempting black magic out of
Harry Potter movies, to disable the general public from being
unable to even the simplest business calculation.

Jul 20 03:21 AM

[Danny Newton:]

In my state, there are several aspects of the law that require a public notice entered into the "local newspaper of record." There is no sales taxes on news papers. Even the local governments must use the local news paper to notify the public via newspaper of an intention to borrow money. The symbiotic relationship between the government and the newspaper is not new.

Jul 20 09:48 AM