The Death and Life of Great American Newspapers
Posted on 27. Nov, 2009 by Abe in Features
Ink and newsprint, in the past century, have dominated the exchange of information and broke groundbreaking stories about war, corruption and injustice. In a sense, newspapers and their physical forms contain our collective memory and consciousness, and it is in this sense that many of us feel a loss for print media.
The Internet, however, has allowed unprecedented means of distributing and enhancing content. The New York Times, despite incurring heavy losses in its daily subscriptions, has attracted new generations of readers accustomed to rich-media content. Picture slideshows, streaming video and interactive visual aids (e.g. maps, charts, diagrams, etc.) perform tasks that are impossible through the print edition. Furthermore, editors and reporters can make corrections and provide addendums to stories instantaneously—this immediacy of access and communication is what similarly makes social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter so viable in today’s market.
A complete transition from print to online media for newspapers is no longer a question of if but a question of when. The Internet is the obvious future for journalism, and publications like The New York Times have embraced its technological possibilities remarkably well. The problem, however, is sustaining quality journalism while maintaining steady profits. Here, the solutions are not clear, and those in and outside of the industry are scrambling to find a lasting panacea.
THE PROBLEM
During the 20th century, newspapers survived under the financial beneficence of wealthy media families. To this day families like the Hearsts, Bancrofts, Murdochs and Newhouses run multi-billion dollar corporate empires that fuel the operations of daily newspapers, magazines and television networks. Although this family-run business model was not always idyllic in the pre-Internet era, families like the Chandlers (former owners of The L.A. Times) and Grahams (owners of the Washington Post Company) served the public interest by funding quality journalism. They allowed newspapers to fund long-term investigative reports and international correspondence. In return, they reigned over retail and classified ads, primary sources of profit for the newspaper industry.
The advertising, subscription and newsstand sale business model worked well until the advent of the Internet. Launched in 1995, Craigslist has become, in the past decade, the premier classified ad service (offered free except for job and apartment broker listings in select cities). This took away a significant share of the newspaper industry’s revenue. To exacerbate this problem, readers naturally flocked to the Internet to access free, up-to-date content on newspaper websites.
At this moment, newspapers are in a precarious position: having unprecedented access to readers while lacking a sustainable business model. The Chandlers, foreseeing the future problem of newspapers, jumped ship in 2000, when they sold their share of the Times-Mirror Company to the Tribune Company based in Chicago. In 2007, real estate mogul Sam Zell bought out Tribune and has since gutted The L.A. Times with major staff cuts and content reduction. Instead of rescuing an ailing newspaper, the high-tempered Zell has clashed severely with the editorial staff, each side exchanging vitriol that has further depreciated the 128-year-old institution.
More locally, the O.C. Register is another example of a newspaper reduced to a fraction of its former glory. The three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning institution has been victim to a series of cost-cutting ventures by its Irvine-based parent company Freedom Communications, Inc. In 2006, the company launched the O.C. Post (which has since merged with the Irvine Daily News to form the Irvine World News), a tabloid daily newspaper with simplified versions of Register articles. In light of the launch, the Register laid off a significant number of its staff in order to maintain shareholder profit.
In 2006, Freedom Communications, Inc. established Freedom Interactive, a division responsible for the online presence of its media properties. In response to growing demand for rich-media content, the Register has followed suit with video and slideshow content on its website while news coverage continues to operate under a tighter budget and diminished staff. Last year, the paper announced that it would outsource part of its copy-editing and layout to a company in New Delhi, India in order to maintain quality of local coverage.
Transitioning the print format to the Internet while getting readers to care enough to pay for content is easier said than done, but 2009 is the year for newspapers to act quickly or risk sinking (this past December, the Tribune Company became the first of potentially many companies to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy).
THE SOLUTIONS
Several media organizations have proposed solutions to the decline of print journalism, and I will outline below the possible methods newspapers can adopt to keep afloat.
Digital subscriptions and micropayments
According to Nielsen’s February ratings, the top 15 online news sources include Yahoo! News, AOL News, Google News and The Huffington Post, which operate by collecting news from other sources (like the Associated Press) and listing them on their front page. These sites depend on the free online content of newspapers and have successfully attracted a steady stream of ad revenue. The solution—according to Steven Brill, founder of CourtTV and American Lawyer magazine, in a private memo posted on the Poynter Institute website—is to “encourage a sense of ‘membership’ in a community committed to an informed society and participation in the world’s prime journalism organization.”
By charging readers a small fee for individual articles and monthly or yearly access to online content, The New York Times can share the profits incurred from subscription fees gained by traffic redirected from sites, like the Huffington Post, which currently serve more as parasites than newspaper contributors. This proposal is echoed by Walter Isaacson, former managing editor of TIME magazine, who believes that newspapers need to set the precedent for establishing a quick and easy payment system for content. Both Brill and Isaacson argue that readers can be taught to pay for content just as iTunes and other digital music services have taught consumers to pay for MP3s rather than pirate on Napster or Kazaa.
More effective and deliberate web ads
Advertising and marketing executives have a vested interest in keeping newspapers alive, and they can help in rescuing the industry. According to the Associated Press, The New York Times recently announced that online ad sales fell 3.5% to $81.9 million in their fourth quarter earnings. Although not a dismal figure at any rate, current ad revenue is not enough to sustain operational costs, and if newspapers are to fully embrace the web, online advertising must evolve as well.
Initially, websites charged advertisers based on the cost per mille (CPM) scale, which charges advertisers for every 1,000 visitors. The more effective and profitable scale today is cost per acquisition (CPA), which charges advertisers for every purchase, registration or form submission that is incurred by an ad.
According to Brill, search engines like Google outperform newspapers in ad revenue, charge less for their ads and provide more specific targets based on their users’ queries. If newspapers want to remain competitive, they must develop a more responsive, interactive means of advertising that go beyond banners and pop-ups.
Non-profit and advocacy journalism
Dan Gillmor of the Center for Citizen Media, a blog dedicated to citizen journalism, suggests that non-profit advocacy organizations should step up and fill in the gaps that newspapers are leaving. The “almost-journalists” of the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch and Council on Foreign Relations have doggedly and extensively reported on Guantanamo Bay, Saudi workers’ rights and the crisis in Darfur. If these almost-journalists can uphold standards of fairness—in acknowledging disagreements and nuances—Gillmor believes that they can provide an invaluable service in preserving the tradition of journalism in a post-newspaper era.
Others argue that newspapers should operate as non-profit organizations, funded by universities and foundations. This model has been promising in recent years. Troubled by the lack of critical local reporting by the San Diego Union-Tribune, voiceofsandiego.org, a non-profit and independent online newspaper, has done groundbreaking reportage on political corruption in the city. The website employs 11 staff members and relies on foundation grants, donations and advertising. The small staff keeps operational costs low and allows it to focus on local issues that major metropolitan newspapers fail to report.
New York-based ProPublica employs 28 staff members and features detailed investigative journalism as a non-profit organization as well. It works in the public interest by providing for-profit media organizations with their reportage. According to The New York Times, Mother Jones magazine, the leftist bimonthly news magazine which also operates under the non-profit model, has not been immune to the recession, but it has preserved its staff count and maintained steady subscriptions, donations and grants to operate.
If newspapers are to operate solely online, job cuts are inevitable. The advantage of a non-profit model allows reporters to focus on local issues and share their reportage with other organizations. Correspondence provided by advocacy organizations with headquarters around the world also may take the place of international correspondents from official news organizations.
CONCLUSION
In a BusinessWeek article titled “Out with the Dead Wood for Newspapers,” Rick Wartzman, a former Business Editor at The L.A. Times, writes, “To stop the red ink, newspapers need to get rid of the ink altogether. It’s high time for online-only operations.” After a conversation with Russ Stanton, the current editor of The L.A. Times, Wartzman reports that a web-only LA Times could support a staff of 275 people, 150 of whom would be responsible for local reporting and the rest for advertising, tech support and administrative duties. This, however, would mean a heavy cutback from the current 625 reporters and editors working at the Times.
The survival of the newspaper demands difficult decisions, and it may require some heavy losses and changes before journalism begins to recover. Until then, owners of large media conglomerates like Sam Zell must take greater responsibility and act not only in their own business interests but also in service to the public. These two are not necessarily counteractive. Media moguls like Rupert Murdoch, the much-maligned multi-billionaire owner of News Corporation, has reportedly lost money in his operation of the Times of London and Wall Street Journal. Nevertheless, these newspapers continue to run under his financial direction.
Like William Randolph Hearst, moguls like Zell and Murdoch are interested in building vast castles of power and influence, and it is in their best interests that their properties produce quality reporting and attract a loyal readership. The Hearst Corporation-owned Seattle Post-Intelligencer, on March 17, shut down its print operations and slimmed its 165-man staff down to 20 newsroom employees responsible for commentary and original reporting. If the era of newspapers of record is over, perhaps journalists can work in smaller, more localized groups comprising a larger network of cooperating news websites. Until then, some of the brightest minds of the industry must discover a means to fund good reporting, encourage aspiring journalists and attract an entirely new generation of news readers.
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Photo courtesy of greenbird_ontree, licensed under Creative Commons
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