This post is really going to be about the future of newspapers, but I couldn't resist the headline. A national media organization recently told me I wasn't suited for a position with them because I, as an academic, couldn't hack the pace of a job in the "real" world!!! I wouldn't mind trying a job that didn't work me 7 days a week (albeit just 10 months a year, and the "real" job was 11 mos.), one that didn't require me to teach three classes per term, each with many hours of prep, grading and student meetings. Add in developing new classes and curricula, departmental meetings, committee meetings and reports, mentoring of new faculty, my own writing ( book and three articles at present), my work as volunteer webmaster for the local IABC chapter, answering student e-mails, helping the student newspaper with design, doing my own reading to keep up in a rapidly changing field, writing occasionally in this blog, writing letters of recommendation for current and former students, and on and on.
Right now, a "real job" sounds pretty good! Talk about misguided....
On to the newspaper biz, which is still struggling with the idea that if it ain't in ink on crushed, dead trees, it's none of their business. Many papers are slow to catch on, and the non-profit organizations supposedly guiding them into the future can't seem to do so.
W. Russell Neumann (another lowly professor) said way back in 1991 that newspapers should be thinking about taking the money spent on the print product and invest it in online content.( from Philip Meyer's article in the Charlotte Observer, 6/27). I had said basically the same thing a few years earlier. So the content problem was noted years ago. Even the classified ad problem has been around for years, but the newspaper industry has been slow to move, a potentially serious error.
Craigslist has been gnawing away at the valuable classified ad franchise previously held by newspapers, and the site just announced the addition of 100 more cities. More sites, such as Postadshere.com are joining the fray. Yet many newspapers seem unable to adjust to meet the challenge. Newspapers clearly could control the local class ads market because no other medium is better situated to control the local media market. Period. Losing classified ad income could be deadly for the print product. Where's the help?
Perhaps a more important bleeding is the loss of readers, again despite the best efforts of industry organizations to lead the way in growing the audience. Readership has fallen steadily from a high of 80 percent in 1964 to just over 50 percent today. You can't just expect to move the lost print product readers online, at least without some changes in content. The old "shovelware" model just doesn't work. Eli Noam, in an excellent Financial Times article (6/22, ft.com), points out that to offset a 5 percent drop in print circulation, news organizations would have to grow total online and print readership by 50 percent annually to break even.
Noam also says that what newspapers need to do is differentiate their product line and step away from focusing only on the traditional print product, something I have been saying for years (see 4/18 post, below). It's not that young readers abhor news, they just prefer receiving it in non-print ways. Noam says that a bright future awaits those news organizations (N.B.: not newspapers) "that can differentiate their product, establish brand identity, and function as an integrator and filter." In other words, get better online and consider new, even free, print products.
I don't see this in the near future for the vast majority of newspapers, er, news organizations. What little help and leadership they are getting from the news associations seems aimed mostly at large circulation papers. Pity. Most newspapers in this country are small.
Finally, I ran across a news tidbit that said that the Belo group is going to increase operating expenses 12 percent as they diversify their product line. What? A company actually willing to think long-term success instead of keeping shareholders happy with short-term profits? Now that's news. I am going to keep a close eye on Belo to see if it succeeds. You should, too.
Oh, but ignore all of the above thoughts . . . . I am only a professor.
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