The above video features Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer telling the Washington Post that the print media as we know it today will be archaic in a decade.
Hyberbole or not, he may be on to something.
Boston Phoenix writer and Northeastern University journalism professor Dan Kennedy blogged today about the pending eruption of GateHouse Media, attributing several sources that the corporate stock fell 80 percent in the past year and current speculation has the company entering bankruptcy by the end of the year.
GateHouse Media is the parent of the Newburyport Current, one of about 100 weekly and daily newspapers dotting the eastern Massachusetts media landscape.
Judging from recent vents and rages, such as this one by Gillian Swart about the events and emotions leading to her resignation from the Current, Kennedy’s description of poor management and pending turnover seems on target.
Which brings me back to Ballmer and his prediction that newspapers will be kaput in 10 years.
I don’t know if his words will be accurate or not, but if you agree that the future of newspaper sales are based in part on consumption by the general public then consider, as John Ivanko suggests at Sustainablog, that we are consumers because of our lust for wealth and greed.
He may as well be referring to newspaper publishers.
In the April/May 2008 issue of American Journalism Review, Joe Morton writes of the corporate greed of newspaper editors, citing U.S. newspapers saw an average profit margin of 17 percent last year. How many businesses can claim that high a figure?
I’m sure GateHouse Media’s wealth of newspapers are in that mold. I’ve never understood how the Current can afford to distribute I don’t know how many hundreds of copies for free every week.
If newspaper folks agree, as Morton writes, that the automobile and real estate markets are in flux, what does that flux say about the dominance of such newspaper advertising? No wonder sales are plummeting and reporters are resigning.
What do you think?
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Ari Herzog is an online media strategist and Newburyport City Councilor-Elect.
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The “free” newspapers are just like the “free” TV; advertising pays the bill. I can’t imagine that the small amount I pay to get 2 papers a day delivered even pays for the delivery.
I think that the problem with newspapers is that they’ve lost their reason to exist. Most people now get their news from TV and/or the internet.
Where newspapers could really shine is if they went back to doing real journalism. I.e., digging out the stories behind the stories, fact checking everything that public figures and corporations say, and publishing stories full of facts. Right now, all they do is act as stenographers, typing up whatever someone says.
The quick answer is: no. But that doesn’t mean it will be the same newspaper you and I grew up on. The biggest problem newspapers are facing is the rapidly shrinking stream of print advertising. As more readers turn to the Web as their main source of news, print circulations are dwindling at a sometimes harrowing rate. And while the newspaper industry is spending more of its resources on its Web presence, advertisers are slow to hop on board.
Unfortunately, as a group we reacted too slowly to the Web and it’s going to take years to catch up. Of course, the Web isn’t static and is semmingly changing every second. So, it’s fair to argue that the newspaper industry will never full catch up. I think eventually, we will. And advertisers will spend like they did when we flourished.
However, that will take a while. And in the meantime, you’re going to see some serious constriction of the newspaper industry. Some newspapers, like the Boston Herald, will disappear as the days of large cities having more than large daily newspaper are fading fast.
But weekly commmunity newspapers, like the one I work for, will always have a role. We will always be the best source for letting readers know what’s going on in their community, be it a new building proposal to what’s cooking at the elementary schools.
Our challenge is maintaining the high quality that our regular readers expect while at the same time exploring current media options and techniques to attract new readers. That means we’ll continue increasing our Web presence and thinking of ways of presenting the news (videos, blogs, photo slideshows, etc.)
david rogers, editor
tri-town transcript
@Dick – I also get most of my news from NECN and boston.com but I also enjoy the tactile sensation of holding something in my hand whether a newspaper, magazine, or book.
I don’t see libraries or magazine publishing houses disappearing anytime soon yet I’m unsure about newspapers; the successful papers with a strong sense of journalism which as you indicate are not just reporters but investigators, too, will survive. And those family-run papers, whether current or past, should survive. But the papers created by some corporate editor and exist for no reason other than to provide competition to something else, I don’t see a solid future.
@David – Thanks for your insights. I’m curious why you think the newspaper industry reacted slowly to the Web. I turn to the Detroit Free Press or Seattle’s The Stranger, for instance, and I recall they were interactive social media sites for nearly a decade.
The newspaper industry can be equated to those who only see their doctor when they’re sick. By that I mean, we aren’t pro-active in regards to our healthcare, only re-active. Only until did things start turing sour for print advertising did we aggresively look toward the Web. By then we were already in a hole, a hole that will take a while to climb out of.
In other words, we’re a pretty conservative bunch and we don’t like change. For example, I work with many people who aren’t comfortable with blogs, videos, slideshows, etc.
I’m not old enough to remember, but I’m sure there was a large group of journalists reluctant to get rid of movable type when computers and word processors came around.
Yo, I have been around long enough, plus journalists (as in, reporters) had very little to do with movable type. Given the hassles with it, I can’t imagine anyone was reluctant to get rid of movable type – except the typesetters, of course.
Computers are another issue, I agree.
Anyway, I think you’ll find a whole generation of people who get their news from TV, blogs and other online sources (as Dick said), but because newspapers have become unreliable as they have been bought up by corporate interests.
If you see the person on TV saying something, there’s no chance that it was not reported correctly. It could be out of context, however.
The only reason the weeklies around here survive, I believe, is because the daily newspapers are not doing/not able to do what they are supposed to. David, I am not familiar with your paper – but I am sort of familiar with you, am I not? – but what gave the CNC weeklies I worked on the edge was that they could go in depth, as Dick also said.
So all those restrictions on how long the stories could be that were passed down from corporate to us freelancers sort of defeated that purpose, don’t you agree?
But, not one to underestimate the power of the (print) press, I can report that many of the businesses I profiled for the Current reported back to me an increase in customers after the piece came out.
So people are still reading, and advertisers should take note of that.
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