The Modern Journalist

2 Sides: An Online Debate about the Future of Newspapers

Image by William Couch via Flickr

Yesterday, I posted two blogs: 40 questions that determine whether you should run a news website and 8 rules for creating an online community.

The first post is a list that I culled together by digging through all my documents from when I built a daily news site at a magazine, which a reader aptly suggested I turn into a wiki (that’s coming this weekend), and the second comes from an analysis of the some of the more enlightened Web thinkers.

Both generated considerable conversation in other areas (Twitter, email, instant message). I sent the pieces to a couple friends who work at traditional, corporate media companies and one of the responses I got was this: That’s all well and good, but how do you go about building a modern news site when you’re also trying to deal with legacy print?

That’s a great question. It’s the question, actually. It’s also one that I don’t think has an answer that most traditional journalists are going to like.

The Major Premise that I start from is this: the business model and content structure for traditional newspapers will fail.

By that I mean this: print and online advertising can only carry a company so far. With the decline of circulation in print and the very real possibility that traditional online banner ads will bring in less revenue, companies can’t simply hope that circulation and page views will sustain news organizations.

If you buy that premise — and many people don’t — then the Minor Premise is that newspapers must restructure their operations to create a new model, one that isn’t based upon a legacy that we agree (if you buy the Major Premise) is failing.

My support: the largest newspaper chain, Gannett, announced a $2.5 billion write down today; the company’s stock has fallen from a high of $88 dollars in January 2004 to a low  of $28  in June 2008.

In other words, the perceived value of the company is at an all time low. If we take bellwether stocks like Google and Microsoft as indicators of the health of the tech sector, it is logical to use Gannett as bellwether for newspapers.

Now there are those who disagree.

A McClatchy editor has written a piece in defense of traditional print publications, saying that the evolution of traditional news into its more modern form simply takes time and the public outcry about the death of newspapers is vastly overstated. (I can sympathize. I covered technology during the boom and bust and the media was more than happy to write stories about the death of the start-up, despite evidence that the start-up has forever changed our world.)

That doesn’t change the perceived value of McClatchy, which has seen its stock plummet from a high of $74 in April 2005 to a low of $8 in June 2008.

If you can buy that the model has changed and that the value perception of the industry is sinking rapidly, then there are two courses: small changes to the model in hopes of stabilizing the revenue drop and stopping the stock free fall or radical changes to the model that completely reinvent what newspapers do and how they operate to re-engage a public that has by-and-large left.

My argument against the first, small changes, is that it doesn’t address the underlying dissatisfaction readers have with their news outlets. The problem isn’t a tweaking of content, which for all intents and purposes is what new Tribune owner Sam Zell has suggested. That short-term thinking fails to address the needs of a modern reader — and just as importantly ends up being a waste of money at a time when newspapers can ill afford those losses.

For instance, the Washington Post just trained 185 reporters on shooting and editing video despite the fact that the newsroom only has 5 cameras for use.

The time spent training reporters, editors, copy editors and photographers on video editing addresses a content problem, but it fails to address the business and user problem. It’s a classic mistake. Print people looking for a solution that fits their skill set instead of addressing the actual problems (declining circulation, declining revenues, falling stock price and reader migration to other sources).

Another Major Premise: readers aren’t leaving one newspaper for another; they are leaving newspapers for modern outlets (craigslist, ebay, the national weather service online, yahoo finance, sports league website, ect).

By trying to outdo each other, newspapers have failed to grasp who their competition really is, thus ensuring they won’t compete.

While they struggle amongst themselves to try to define what the world should look like, a whole generation of readers and companies have already started creating that new world.

That doesn’t mean newspapers can’t be apart of it. However, it does mean they have lost the opportunity to define the conversation. Instead, they are now simply another seat at the table.