Newspapers Are Dead Already

Tim O'Reilly jumps into the death of the newspapers meme I have been tracking for a long time:

[from SF Chronicle in Trouble?]

I hate to play Valleywag, but I'm hearing rumors that the San Francisco Chronicle is in big trouble. Apparently, Phil Bronstein, the editor-in-chief, told staff in a recent "emergency meeting" that the news business "is broken, and no one knows how to fix it." ("And if any other paper says they do, they're lying.") Reportedly, the paper plans to announce more layoffs before the year is out.

It's clear that the news business as we knew it is in trouble. Bringing it home, Peter Lewis and Phil Elmer Dewitt, both well-known tech journalists, were both part of layoffs at Time Warner in January (they worked for Fortune and Time, respectively), and John Markoff remarked to me recently that "every time I talk to my colleagues in print journalism it feels like a wake."

Meanwhile, Peter Brantley passed on in email the news that "a newspaper newsletter covering that industry publishes its own last copy":

The most authoritative newsletter covering the newspaper industry issued a gloomy prognosis for the business today 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. "For those who have not made the transition [by now], technology and market factors may be too strong to enable success."

Doc Searls weighs in with a long, long list of things that newspapers could do... or might have done years ago, since it is now way too late. Dave Winer similarly suggests reforming journalism schools, which will take decades.

We should stop wringing our hands for the moribund local newspapers. They are going under. Period. Full stop.

Since we are all trying to be more green, we should be happy that mazillions of trees won't be cut down and turned into newsprint, that cars will not be wending their way through a hundred million suburban cul-de-sacs so that papers can be thrown out of the window into our driveways.

Journalists will, yes, have to get other jobs, or figure out how to make it online.

Yes, various services that newspapers provide to local communities will have to be accomplished in other ways. But all the money making aspects of what newspapers do will be dissected into more directed online sites -- Craig's List, Yelp, Moviefone, etc. -- and the rest no one cares about much. Legal notices? Someone will create a site that specializes in it, and will charge for it.

The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other national rags (USA Today?) will likely make it, although their economics may change. But the average local newspaper is dead. Buffett said that newspapers are "a business in permanent decline." If you draw the curve they are going to hit the bottom and bounce.

I for one am not going to mourn their passing.

tags: warren+buffett, tim+oreilly, doc+searls, dave+winer, death+of+the+newspapers

Comments

[Dave Williams]

You're so right...Rather than newspapers hanging on until the end and dying out. They need grasp hold of reality...Turn the tables...make online more of a priority...Sell online advertising packages that feature newspaper print ads...second. Legal notice sites you say? look at enotices.com ...The end is near unless the print industry sucks it up and moves with the times.

[Ken Gronbach]

Stowe,
If what you say is true, and I believe it is, the Fourth Estate as we know it is history. I live in Connecticut where the Hartford Courant, the Nations oldest newspaper in continuous publication, is hanging on by a thread. When the Courant is gone Connecticut will have no reporting because all the other media rely on the Courant for their news. Three years ago The Courant single-handedly upended a corrupt state government and forced the resignation of the governor. When the Forth Estate is gone who will keep the government honest?
Ken Gronbach

[Zac Echola]

While paid dailies all over the world are seeing large drops in readership, smaller free dailies with news-so-local-it-hurts are seeing increases in readership, particularly amongst younger readers.

I have a feeling, if newspapers are to survive, they need to target their audiences better.

Project for Excellence in Journalism came out with some analysis of why people don't read the paper and the top answer was "not enough time." Cost hardly played a factor.

In Boston and New York daily Metro papers are circulating in subway stations. They're small papers that are easy, quick glances at the news and are just as easy to throw away once you get off the train.

That's the direction I see newspaper companies moving with their print products.

[Toby Dayton]

As you well know, and have documented thoroughly in a long list of excellent posts, the daily newspaper industry is on its deathbed, afflicted with what must be certainly be considered a terminal illness. The causes are too numerous to combat, including gross mismanagement, complacency brought on by years of monopoly status in most markets, technology, ferocious competition, the web, the FCC, an explosion of better media alternatives, etc. Like other business models that have failed to adapt to a changing environment, dailies no longer provide a compelling value proposition for their readers or their advertisers. As a result, they have simply passed into irrelevance and will eventually fade into oblivion. The only questions that remain are how quickly that day will come, what newspapers, if any, will survive, what companies will fill certain aspects of the vacuum created, and how our society will be impacted by that eventuality (both positively and negatively). For those of us who care, it will be a fascinating period of time to watch. I imagine it to resemble how an astronomer might feel, one who is fortunate enough to be able to witness the death of a star as it slowly transforms into a white dwarf or explodes in dramatic fashion into a supernova. Over the next few years, my guess is that we'll be seeing lots of both.

[Hashim]

"I for one am not going to mourn their passing."

I will.

Newspapers are the most accesible way to disseminate information to the most vulnerable in our society (the elderly, the poor, the less educated, the incarcerated, the homeless). Without the service of an offline newspaper, we will create an underclass of the less informed.

[Jeremy Pepper]

I mourn their passing, and not just because of my profession. It's because who then watches the watchmen? Bloggers don't care about the small details, and USA Today, et al are not going to cover the small town government.