Search This Blog

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

The Demise of the Newspaper - Time for Change

I predicted in 2000 that newspapers would be dead by 2020. It looks like I was being gracious with expecting them to last that long. I think they will be gone sooner than that now. I am not saying that their will not be a "printed" news sources - it will just be in electronic format.

In 1975 - Lulu and I founded a weekly newspaper called The Tamaqua Paper. The daily newspaper - The Tamaqua Evening Courier - was closed and we thought our town of 10,000 could still support its own paper. Although we planned to publish daily we soon realized that publishing weekly was even a difficult task. We had the entire operation set up in our 20 by 20 basement - printing press - darkroom - offices - circulation.

Lulu was fresh out of college and reluctantly served as editor. I was the publisher and did much of the reporting. We slugged it out for 2 years - finally selling it when our children starting coming along. Russ Funk - a local pastor - bought it and folded it 2 years later after running up a lot of debt.

Fast forward 30 years. With the advent of the Internet - news can be circulated at lightning speed. Electronic web pages can be published in seconds from anywhere in the world. The term Weblog was born and everybody could now publish what they wanted - when they wanted. You are reading my weblog right now.

Like every large town in America - Tallahassee has a daily newspaper called the Democrat. This town of 185,000 has faithfully supported this newspaper for over 100 years. It is the history book covering whatever happens in the capital city. It is owned by Gannet publishing which also owns many newspaper throughout the land.

The Democrat is dying a slow death. They offer a fantastic product by historic standards - but we live in an electronic age. It is hard to compete with a product that is virtually free. It is 9 AM - and I have already read over 10 newspapers from throughout the land - even the world. I have also faithfully read my Tallahassee Democrat that was on the driveway at 4 AM. The problem is that I already read most of the stories in their Internet edition last night.

When computers first were marketed - it was difficult reading news printed on a black screen in dot matrix type. But today - one can skim pages that in most cases look better than the version printed on newsprint. Since I have just crossed the 60 year old barrier - my eyesight is not what it used to be. With the touch of one key - I can enlarge or brighten the page to my comfort. I can also cut and paste any article or picture I want to save. It is so easy to highlight an article and send it to all of my friends in one swoop.

Old terrestrial newspapers have a lot of expenses. Beside having a large capital investment in equipment - it is a labor intensive industry. It is also expensive to keep a staff of reporters - writers - editors - photographers - deliverers - printers - and office workers. It is difficult to cover that nut by selling a product for 50 cents that costs you $5.00 to produce.

Newspapers have lived on advertising fees and retail sales. But services on the Internet like eBay and Craigslist have virtually wiped out the classified advertising pages of the paper. An example of this dramatic loss is in today's newspaper. There are only 2 pages of classified ads where there may have been 12 pages just 5 years ago when we arrived in town. Also in today's edition they are offering a two for one subscription deal. Pay for one subscription and have the newspaper sent to a friend for free. A newspaper generally charges for advertising space based upon paid circulation. This is a cute way of increasing circulation in an effort to not lose advertising customers.

Newspapers are failing all over the country. The Morning Call of Allentown - the daily that covered Tamaqua for 100 years - has filed for bankruptcy. It was the flagship of all media in our area and their demise was unthinkable right up to when the parent company - The Tribune - made the announcement. Keep you eyes on the news - more will follow.

Almost all newspapers offer an electronic version on the Internet - but the dirty little secret is - they make very little money in the process. They are all marking time waiting for someone to come up with a model that they can follow. The New York Times offered a special edition on line for $5.00 a month. It failed miserably. There just wasn't enough added value over their free Internet version.

On this last day of 2008 - a year filled with much sadness about wars - lost homes - lost jobs - lost fortunes - it is sad to throw another log on this fire of gloom and doom. Many older folks can't start the day without their fresh newspaper and coffee at the breakfast table. It is like reading a novel that did not exist just a few hours ago. What they do not realize is that even this fresh crisp copy in their hands is already obsolete. Meanwhile their kids are catching up with the latest news on their iPhones and Blackberries. News stories that have broken in the last 5 minutes are available on the Internet now.

In the old days - people used to heat their homes with wood and ride their horses to work. They used to buy fresh food daily because it would spoil from the lack of refrigeration. They would bathe only once a week and use an outhouse for waste. You are experiencing another change.

Tomorrow is 2009 - place the newspaper on the romantic scrap pile of the past. Out with the old - in with the new. I doubt that the Tallahassee Democrat will print this weblog in the paper.

1 comment:

Mark Hohmeister said...

but can we figure out how to make money on the internet product before the paper product dies? that's the $64,000 (or million, or billion) question.