And no one really seems to know what to do about it. Over the last year, I’ve had the chance to go to a couple of panel discussions about the future of the news business, and the dominant themes seemed to be:
- People don’t want to read anymore!
- Online editions can’t make enough money to support good coverage!
- Don’t trust anyone under 30!
That’s all debatable, but in any event, I was glad to see Globe columnist Alex Beam’s more nuanced piece Monitoring the future of newspapers. Beam argues that moves by the Christian Science Monitor have positioned it well to thrive, or at least survive, in the new media future.
Speaking of the media, the ACLU of Massachusetts is sponsoring a free discussion on Sept. 16 at 6pm: When Checks and Balances Fail: The Media and Civil Liberties in the 2008 Election. It’s in honor of Constitution Day and is free and open to the public.
Please share widely!
The Monitor had been going out of business in slow motion for years. If it was investor owned, it would have been closed or sold long ago, but publishing it is part of the mission of its owner, the First Church of Christ, Scientist. They can’t close it, but they keep downsizing it. I doubt it generates any net earnings for the Church.
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p>Not a business model, by a long shot.
newspapers are still profitable, just not profitable enough to appease wallstreet.
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p>3 things need to happen, IMHO:
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p>1. Newspapers need to divest from Wallstreet and become privately-owned companies. If those companies are owned by local owners who have pride in their cities, all the better. (How old fashioned of me!) This way, if a newspaper is earning 5-10% profits a year, it’s making a decent profit – and editors and execs don’t have to worry about slashing reporters and costs to eek out every little cent.
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p>2. They’re going to have to adapt to the internet. I think print will have a place in the media for a long time coming, but newspapers have to start focusing on maximizing profits coming out of online ads. Currently, the income from online ads is paltry compared to print ads.
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p>In most cases, the only real income from online ads come from when people click on them. That’s a lousy model. Never in the history of advertising was Macy’s allowed to only pay a newspaper if someone brought in a coupon from the paper to pay for their new outfit; Boston hospitals don’t only pay when someone sends an application, checking off that they found the job in the job section of the papers. The media’s going to have to alter how ads work online if they want to grow their profitability in the days ahead.
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p>3. They need to give readers a reason to read their paper. The cuts that newspapers have made may increase immediate profits, but they hurt the newspaper immediately. There’s little original reporting and little actual hard news these days. Especially now that the internet is taking over, if a paper wants to write a story that thousands will link to, it needs to be original and it needs to be hard news. Ultimately, in the days ahead, links are going to be where the money’s at.