Whither Print
UPDATE: Boston Globe’s NYT corporate management gives the Globe unions a month to come up with $20 million in giveback, or close. Boston Herald.
I hope this remains a two-newspaper town. I’ve enjoyed the vigorous competition over the past 15 years that I’ve been a part of it. It is an increasingly rare privilege in American journalism. It is healthy for all of us as newspapermen, serves our readers, and has helped keep our pols as honest as we could together manage to keep them.
Mark Bowden on Pinch Sulzberger. It’s an evisceration that’s not exactly gentle but familiar, almost chummy. (As long as Bowden’s being all familiar about Sulzberger, let me just say Bowden’s a passing acquaintance. I met him at a reading of “Things Worth Fighting for,” Michael Kelly’s posthumous collection of essays. Nice guy, nice enough to pretend like he knew who I was. He was one of the readers. It was in a church in Cambridge. More like a memorial service than a book tour. PJ O’Rourke read, too. Bowden’s also magnificent writer whose must-read linked above pretty well sums up the Globe’s woes. If you haven’t read “Black Hawk Down,” it’s not too late to correct that deficiency.)
More on what’s fundamentally wrong with the New York Times Co. Keller via Politico: “Saving the New York Times now ranks with saving Darfur as a high-minded cause.” It’s actually a pretty good line, biting the hand though it may be. Morons with more money than they know what to do with apparently have offered to donate.
EARLIER:
Murdoch says newspapers will have to start charging for online content to survive. Reuters.
They’ll probably have to do something like that, but the first thing most of them need to do is figure out this isn’t the 20th century anymore. Also, that they have competition, and do not in fact have some kind of exalted, protected, priest-like status in society. In fairness, that is starting to dawn on some of them, but only because the walls are falling in around them, the barbarians are breaking down the doors, and they are being forced to throw employees and assets over the wall in a bid to buy time.
Because the Internet leaks news like a sieve, what Murdoch is talking about may require concerted action to work, which raises the spectre of abominations such as the AP or the government having a hand in it. There was some talk recently about cable-style Internet news content bundling.
Here’s Sen. Benajmin Cardin, D-Maryland, at the Washington Post on a special non-profit exemption for newspapers. Tax exemption as a form of subsidy. The idea that 501(c)(3) newspapers would not be able to make endorsements but would be free to opine on political issues is a little laughable. It’s the subsidized bias and dishonesty in reporting act. It raises the spectre of lawsuits and review boards poking around in content to figure out what is and isn’t an endorsement.
It is also fundamentally flawed by its premise that tax exempt status is sufficient to stop the revenue bleeding at troubled local newspapers. It ignores one of the fundamental driving engines of American journalism … profit. That and free speech. Hearst may have done it out of a sense of civic duty. He also did it for money. And, not least, for editorial power. I suppose an annoying print version of annoying public-broadcaster style fundraisers might help fill the revenue gap … some civic-minded individuals are willing to toss coins into the bottompless pit also known as the New York Times … but refocusing elsewhere on the page even easier than hitting the pre-sets or clicking the remote. That said, I’m sure newspapers would welcome tax freedom. If a tax bailout in the interest of public discourse is the way we’re headed, I’d suggest total editorial freedom, beyond what is allowed NPR and churches. That, plus bingo.
Here’s 10 experts on how to reinvent print newspapers. Newspaper Association of America. There’s one or two ideas in there almost as good as chewing gum for a leaky boat. Maybe something in there even better, I don’t know, I stopped reading. The problem isn’t how to keep an antiquated, expensive and increasingly unpopular wood/ink-based distribution means going. The problem isn’t that people don’t It’s how to make money on the Internet. You dopes.
Back to Murdoch, he reports News Corp is working on portable Kindle-like technology that will allow what are essentially daily podcasts. Interesting, could be part of the solution, but the online piece as he notes is still an issue. He suggests something needs to be done about aggregators and revenues. That begins to sound like legislation or litigation, unless someone can figure out some other way to convince Google it’s in Google’s interest to share revenues with newspapers. Maybe a heartfelt entreaty that without news organizations, Google’s going to start coming up short on content.
Some prior thoughts on newspapers short-term and long-term problems:
Full disclosure: I work for the Boston Herald, a former Murdoch tabloid now locally owned by a former Murdoch protege who maintains close ties and several business relationships with News Corp., in competition with the Boston Globe. However, opinions expressed here are my own.
Topics: media
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:14 am Comments (5) on Friday, April 3, 2009
5 Responses to “Whither Print”
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April 3rd, 2009 at 10:55 am
Jules,
If the newspapers want their readers back, then they ought to start paying at least lip service to the concept of “fair and balanced”. The folks I speak to, who have ditched newspapers aren’t so upset about potentially having to subscribe for online content. their biggest complaint is the outright partisanship of the press. The Gray Lady is a prime example. Printing confidential information that harms our nation while we are at war. Week after week of daily stories about a minor incident at Abu Ghraib.
The broadcast media are no different. Constat tongue-bathing of the Democrat candidates while treating the republican VP candidate like some backwater hick, It was especially galling to watch the elitist tut-tutting about Sarah Palin by a woman who invited the entire world to take a look up her ass during her colonoscopy. A huge percentage of the public recognized themselves and their values in what Sarah palin says and how she lives her life. Then they saw all these self-appointed guardians of the media treat her like pond scum, turning up their noses and showing all the world, especially their viewers, what hackneyed elitist left-wing sychophants these reporters really are.
All media traditionally make their money through advertising. Subscriptions pay for the soap and toilet paper in the bathrooms. it’s hard to generate ad revenue when folks won’t read your product, and the advertisers know that folks aren’t reading your product. Folks will turn away from a source that constantly harps on how illiterate and provincial they are, how the papers know best what the people need, and who’s editorial boards are in bed with the very politicians who are trying to expand government and destroy our economy.
Take the Globe, for example. Please… But I digress.
The way to restore profits is to tell the truth and regain the confidence of the readership. When folks are willing to pay for the product, advertisers will return. It really IS that simple. People will pay for a product they are comfortable with. They will not pay to have a snobbish old bitty, or, more appropriately, their domineering mother in law come into their house every day and chatter on about how much better that other guys is and how everything you enjoy or do is wrong.
I don’t want an echo chamber. I just want a paper that is honest and tells the truth, objectively, and leaves the bias for the editorial page.
respects,
April 3rd, 2009 at 8:42 pm
I was taught a very long time ago by a very wise man, that, a business that does not produce net income (i.e. profits), does not have to pay income tax, and therefor does not have to apply for a tax exemption.
April 3rd, 2009 at 10:17 pm
AW1 Tim has some great points, but I think it goes beyond the inherent bias the Globe and other Lame Stream Media outlets espouse. Technology is an even bigger piece of the puzzle. With Blackberrys, I Phones, and other ultra hand held technology becoming available there is not much reason to lug a piece of dead tree media around with you.
You can even read them in the bathroom, so another advantage of the newspaper is gone. About the only thing you can’t do with a handheld computer is use it to train your dog.
And Jules, the question isn’t whether Boston will be a one or two newspaper town, it’s whether it will be a one or no newspaper job. The Herald is not immune to the same market dynamics as the Globe.
April 4th, 2009 at 11:26 am
The other point with a newspaper is what to do with it after you read it?
Recycling costs money from somewhere, and unless we can develop a national market for papier mache, it’s going to be tough to dispose of them.
Respects,
April 5th, 2009 at 8:15 am
The Globe has become a boutique newspaper for the ultra libs. With a 65/35 dem to rep balance in Mass you’d think it can’t lose. Somehow it’s figured out how to do it.
That ratio makes the Herald a sure bet loser, except that it’s not. So where’s the real brain power in this town?
http://www.jourtegrity.blogspot.com/