I was thinking about newspapers.
I’ve written before that they are incredibly profitable businesses — in the top three or five market sectors in the world, right up there with pharmaceuticals, with an average profit margin of about 20 percent.
That’s huge; petroleum companies (your ExxonMobils and the like) have single-digit profit margins. They make a lot, but they spend a lot. Reporters are cheap.
All that said, newspapers certainly feel like they’re in trouble. Part of that comes from looking down the road. The 18 to 20-somethings that used to read the paper somewhat regularly aren’t interested, and that’s for several reasons worth noting.
1. They can get major news from just about anywhere: CNN, USA Today, ABC, NBC, CBS, and so on. Maybe one will have it a few minutes before another, but in general they all have the same stories. If something explodes, it doesn’t really matter which one you turn to.
2. Mainstream news sources are boring. Really. The style of your typical newspaper is bland, thanks in large part to much of it being written by the wire services. AP news is boring. Sure, it’s got your five Ws, but only rarely does a gem come out. It’s fine for giving people the basic info, but it’s not going to keep ’em coming back.
3. They just don’t care about local news. Despite the continuing efforts of the current administration, things in this country are pretty much just fine. So who cares whether the city council votes to increase the rates of downtown parking meters, or a new store is opening at the mall, or a local company just made a big sale to the military? Answer: Not most young people. If it doesn’t affect them directly, they couldn’t care less. If it does affect them directly, they’ll hear about it from friends. That’s the power of blogs and social networking sites — only one person needs to read about something and it can spread quickly.
Newspapers see this trend, and it worries them. They’re already being clobbered by the Internet left and right: Craigslist decimates classified-ad revenue when it comes to town. Mainstays like real estate and automotive ads are hurting big time, as more customers are turning to the Internet for information, where there are not only viable alternatives, but better ones. Why browse the newspaper for houses that went on the market two days ago, when Realtor.com will have today’s listings? So papers have to lower their ad rates to deal with the competition that didn’t exist a few years ago.
Hate your local paper? Here’s how to hurt it bad: Start an advertising material distribution service — that is, deliver advertising flyers door to door. They go by different names: “Circular distribution services” or “door to door ad delivery.” Check out HMG Distribution.
Companies, especially local grocery stores, pay a mint to the local newspaper to have their materials delivered to subscribers. When an ad distribution service comes to town, they can easily undercut the paper because they have much less overhead. Like Craigslist, these services are a nightmare for newspapers.
Inexpensive mapping technology and easy access to demographic databases means people can offer advertisers a lot more than the local paper does. Newspaper carriers will deliver to their entire circulation area, or possibly break it down into a few ZIP codes. But an independent delivery firm can deliver to everyone, not just subscribers. And they can be much more specific when it comes to neighborhoods.
In short, it’s a trying time for papers. Not that we didn’t know that.
So newspapers are scrambling to remain relevant. They see competition from all over, but so often get it wrong why these things are competition.
Bloggers, for example, are certainly not competition because they’re better journalists. Sure, some of them are very good journalists, but by and large the blogging community relies on mainstream journalists to do most of the work for them.
Bloggers are competition because they understand what newspapers don’t: Bland, opinionless copy doesn’t sell. Newspapers put their collective nose up and say that true journalism must be objective. Which is fine and good … but it doesn’t get you readers.
That’s for two reasons. First, it’s boring. It’s dry and featureless. The unwritten policy of too many papers is “Never offend anyone,” so scared are they of getting angry letters or of losing some readers. (In fact, almost all people who cancel their subscriptions in a huff renew them fairly quickly.)
Secondly, too many papers equate “objective” with “equal” — that is, they’re happy to give you both sides of a story, but they don’t bother to tell you which one has the facts behind it. It’s more important to be balanced than to be informative. Creationists have learned to take advantage of this by enlisting the media to help present its arguments. Afraid to appear to take sides, much of the mainstream media treats evolution and creationism as if there’s equal weight to both sides.
In fact, the scientific support is so far to one side as to make it laughable that people think there’s a controversy.
So you often get the media quoting celebrities or religious leaders or “men on the street” and other know-nothings to support one “side” of an argument, whatever that argument is, in the name of balance.
Bloggers toss this out the window. So does Fox News. So do many magazines. They’re willing to give an opinion — to take sides and tell you X is right, Y is wrong. And they don’t care if they offend anyone.
And people eat it up.
Newspapers have regular readers. Magazines have loyal readers. Bloggers and columnists — think Keith Olbermann or Bill O’Reilly — have fanatics.
Newspapers just don’t get it. Instead, they focus on particular demographics (“women with children in the home” is the new target for the Roanoke Times, for example), or they throw all sorts of multimedia out there. (“They aren’t just photos — it’s a slide show! With music!) And people just aren’t interested.
Newspapers are going to be around for a while because they still do the best journalism out there. But they’re going to have to realize that what they’ve been offering all along was fine once upon a time, but in this new world people have seen alternatives, and newspapers are looking downright stodgy.
The Fray
Jeff St Real says:
Hey, I go so wrapped up in my comment, I forgot to sign it. I’m “Anonymous”.
Andrew says:
I don’t think you can beat a newspaper when it comes to having the most detailed local news coverage. TV news has a small fraction of what you’ll find in a paper.
And you’re right about what you’re seeing in the Roanoke Times. The paper is deliberately moving away from hard news and to “warmer, fuzzier” stuff. Note, for example, how many times an animal appears on the front page. Where it used to be the major story of the day, that front-page centerpiece (as it’s called) is now planned days or weeks in advance and is almost always going to be some soft, mushy piece. Kittens needing rescue was a recent one.
The Roanoke Times is trying to recapture readership (specifically, wealthy readership) by targeting women (specifically, those with kids still at home). I think it’s kinda sad when a ferret who got caught in a washing machine is front-page news, but that’s where the paper is today.
Jeff St Real says:
Lately a lot of hard luck stories on the front page, too.
Ahh, whatever, the Bush administration has pretty much tapped out of fk-ups (I hope, anyway) so I think we are going through a phase of focusing on human interest stories until we can turn a major corner, nationwide. Just to get through the malaise, right?
Still, I’m a fan of the Roanoke Times, because I’m 6/6 getting my letters to the editor published. Must be that liberal slant, because they never, never, never publish a letter from a conservative, do they? Or maybe, I just can’t get past the vitriolic sanctimony to see if there is an actual point being made in some of those letters.
OK, I’m off on a tangent.
Ms. Elenaeous says:
Whenever I go anywhere the first thing I do is pick up a local newspaper, and if the people in Roanoke think the Roanoke Times is bad they should get a gander at some other larger cities’ papers. Having said that, I think the RT could make many changes to get more readership and have to realize that just because the way something has always been done, (the Roanoke mantra) as I have specifically been told myself upon a suggestion or two, that that’s the best course to continue on. I also don’t think that putting stories about ferrets and latch key kids belong on the front page. As far as local news, they should be all over that as well. Maybe they need to hire tipsters to fill them in on all the stuff they seem to miss, and also not be afraid to hire people who have opinions that differ from theirs and others, and aren’t afraid to voice it. The RT is in a unique position in that they really are the only daily paper in town and if they can’t keep the subscription base up on that alone, that’s pretty scary. I’ll always read my morning paper first but to know what’s really going on I’ll go check the blogs. BTW, I hate that AP style crap too.
Leland says:
The big three network news operations are dying. Every year more and more numbers shrink. Every year we are being asked to more with less. Not too long ago many people I know across the country were shown the door and bureaus shut down or scaled back to almost nothing.
The reasons and theories for this effect are as varied as their are people. But when people want instant news on an event occurring right now, even during traditional broadcast news times, they turn to cable, usually Fox or CNN. (MSNBC is so far down in the ratings that they came in behind the Christian networks and a shopping channel last fall. That is probably why over 400 MSNBC staffers ended up on the street shortly after that book.)
For local news people tend to go to either their local radio, TV or newspaper. And even after a large event, people will by the paper the next day to get the details.
Newspaper’s often have the luxury of time over the electronic media. In many cases the newspaper will clean up the mistakes the electronic media makes trying to be first on the air with whatever bits and pieces of the story they manage to scrape together. Many times I’ve seen the ‘get what you’ve got on the air now, we’ll confirm it later’ syndrome in play in television and radio. And I’ve seen it go bad about half those times.
Pyranoir says:
As a former newspaper person myself, I agree wholeheartedly with Andrew’s analysis. The point on the newspaper profit margin is particularly salient — newspapers act as if that kind of margin is sustainable, and do all kinds of crazy things to maintain it, including raising their rates on their most loyal subscribers while deepening the discounts for new ones.
I think the situation of newspapers is more dire than they like to admit. The information is all right there, though: look closely at any newspaper’s audit statement, and you’ll see how much circulation is generated through third-party sales, promotional efforts, anything but a subscriber actually paying for a paper and, by implication, its content. As readers become more dissatisfied or disconnected from newspapers’ content, they seem willing to do about anything other than change that content to pump up their numbers.
In the case of the Roanoke Times, this gets almost pathological. The recent flap about the Jerry Falwell editorial, for example, with the less-than-respectful comments the day after the man had passed away. I way by no means a fan of Falwell, the region as a whole is probably a lot more sympathetic than I am. The tone of the editorial was, at best, disrespectful, at worst contemptuous, of that sympathy. The complete lack of awareness of how their readers would approach the subject was staggering to me.
Eudaemon says:
If someone wrote a letter to the editor, or a commentary about a doctor who suffered from depression and committed suicide, would it be published in The Times? Possibly…well, most likely. But, let’s put this in another perspective. Let’s say that this same doctor, who was very competent and professional in his field, was a Nazi, or at least, someone with a strong historical interest which blurred at the point of his believing in the Party principles. Would this get published? Or would it upset the stereotype of the “evil stormtrooper”, and might suggest to readers that black is not always black and white is not always white?
The police found him slumped over his desk at home, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His book-lined study, his Phi Beta Kappa key, his Stanford education, did not save him from the ravages of bipolar disorder. These things also did not save him from the propaganda of the media, which shaped society’s opinions against a man, although unorthodox in his interests and beliefs, treated his patients with compassion and respect.
gnomic says:
Newspapers are dead to me.
We still get one because my wife saves more than we spend on the paper, but that’s about it. The local birdliner is nothing more than GOP propoganda. I used to like the weekly alternantive – the St. Louis Riverfront Times – but some smuck bought it and ruined it. It used to be the only missouri paper that did any true investigative journalism and presented facts and convincining discussion rather than shallow opinion and even shallower opinion on the editorial page.
Lest you think “Liberal” (and I freely admit my loathing for this administration has given you ample reason to brand me such) I think the Louisville, KY paper is equally biased to the left and equally bad for the exact same reasons.
And while I’m all about discussion, I agree with Andrew, stupid should get half the column inches. Problem is, I don’t think that most editors can differentiate stupid from most of the cr*p that is published. Its all PR releases and stuff you can find in a 30 second search on the internet.
WHERE’s THE VALUE?!
Sadly, its in the coupons.
Anonymous says:
Given the print medium how can a newspaper ever be closer than a few hours behind? I love your analysis on this topic, especially since you are on the inside. I may be stodgy myself, but I can’t imagine a morning without my paper. I don’t care if it’s a great one or a crappy one, I want the paper on the po’ch in the mo’nin’ (forgive me, I’m listening to 50 Cent, so I had to make up some contractions).
I grew up in a town with an independent paper that was taken over by Gannett about 15 years ago. When I go home and read it now, it’s USA Today light with a local section added. Don’t get me wrong, I love USA Today because it’s full of charts and maps and graphs. Love it. Especially when I’m traveling and it’s right there outside my hotel room door. Oddly, though, I always go right to the Virginia and New York snippets they have on the back of the front section.
That’s why I hope the local paper never goes away. Interesting how the celebrity news crept up to page 2 of the Roanoke Times, but I guess that just a sign of the times, right?
We went to the beach with some D.C. friends a few weeks ago. They went out and grabbed a Washington Post and a NY Times each morning. We were slavering over them like we hadn’t read in years. They are still powerhouses, and probably always will be, but I still like the local rags, and the voices in them that can come through more clearly than over the wire.