Well, in a follow up to the Zell meme that’s floating around, I found an excellent article over at the Toronto Star on the very issue of newspaper’s life, death, and rebirth. David Oliver does a fantastic job in recouping the events over the past few years, what with readership being in decline, online revenues on the way up, and newspaper businesses being sold off or going insolvent — and then talking about what needs to be done.
I don’t like to do posts that are full of quotes, but this article was so important I thought I’d share with you a few select quotes for your reading pleasure.
On why “real” journalists will one day (if not already) flock to the web:
As reporters well know, they can obtain more verifiable insider dope on Motown (and Stuttgart and Toyota City) from the website Autoextremist.com than from the Detroit Free Press or the Detroit News. The same applies to specialist medical, legal, investment banking and architecture sites. Newspapers can sail along for months without breaking news, but websites perish if they lack a sense of urgency. That’s why many of the best and brightest journalists will soon chuck the Daily Bugle to work at them.
On how one-paper monopolies have encouraged mediocrity:
The monopoly mentality also encouraged proprietors, beginning in the 1950s, to adopt a formula of inoffensive content calculated to attract and hold every potential reader. What resulted are papers so bland and formulaic that you can pick one up and have no idea what town or set of values the paper represents
… Add to that the feckless squandering of cash on over-priced acquisitions rather than newsgathering – on the “content providers,” or reporters and editors, that are a paper’s chief calling card – and the resistance to innovation among owners and editors of a certain age, and it’s a marvel papers are still part of the daily life of so many millions of North Americans.
[emphasis my own]
And lastly, what newspapers really need to do to survive:
To be forcefully relevant again, newspapers need to rediscover a point of view even at the risk of alienating readers, to champion selected causes, to develop unsurpassed proficiency in coverage of niche topics (the L.A. Times inexplicably has never attempted to become the undisputed leader in coverage of Hollywood), and, in the case of metropolitan dailies, to adopt “hyperlocalism” as their mantra.
[emphasis my own]
Some really good stuff, courtesy of a local paper in Toronto.
With the chorus growing louder for change, I suppose the remaining question is thus: will newspapers, and their owners, have the will to effect these changes? I think they really get to the heart of what news media was and has become, and I imagine it will be (or will have been) met with extreme resistance from the establishment.
Case in point: Sam Zells, the new owner of the Tribune is in a peculiarly unique position to effect these kind of changes, and doesn’t seem to have a clue.
Sure, I’ll give him two weeks to be a “genius”, but it seems like the Tribune needs someone (or hire someone) with a grander scope and vision to see it through, not someone who seems to be focused on the bottom line.
