How long before Newspapers die?

I think it's interesting how newspapers and TV are going into such different directions, and it all has to do with the "me" generation we live in today.

Everything has to be done on my schedule, when I want it. In news, that means getting the news when it happens on social media, not the next morning when the newspaper arrives at your doorstep. In TV, there is no longer live TV like we used to know it. Very few things actually air live that have a vast majority of viewers watching live. Everything is DVR'd to watch it when "I" want to watch it, or cord-cutters watch it on Hulu the next day. Sports are about the only exception to this, but even the number of sporting events people are sitting in front of the TV to watch live is dwindling.

 

It's too bad Google stopped digitizing old newspapers. They had a pretty great resource.

 

Very different. The individuals who were in charge of the early Websites were reckless individuals with nothing in common with stodgy, cigar smoking newspapers publishers and editors. These reckless individuals convinced the stodgy publishers they had to get on top of this new technology. They were given free reign and given free reign they knew the best way to get the Internet site going was to give it away for free. They didn't give a shit about Journalism or newspapers; they cared about their careers. They laughed all the way to the bank as they ruined the newspaper industry.

Hmmm. Getting "news" on social media. That means a newspaperman(woman) scooping himself/herself by posting news on Twitter. Eventually the newspaper writes a full story on the breaking news item which should have been broken on the newspaper Webpage, not on some site called Twitter. Twitter execs have to be laughing their asses off how newspapers turned that site into the site where all news is broken. The value of Twitter to a newspaper?? Uh, can you say bankruptcy??

 

I don't think that it was a matter of the internet guys snowing the publishers. If memory serves 15 years ago the typical newspaper made about 80% of thier revenue from ads. Publishers thought that the ads and revenue would switch from print to the internet. I remember listing to a McClatchey conference call in about 2007 where Gray Pruitt said to the analysts basically not to worry. No one else had the infrastructure that the enwspapers had. No one else had the content or the sales force. So publishers though the internet was a way to cut printing and distribution ads.

What shocked the industry is that there has been so little growth in internet advertising. The internet created basically an unlimited inventory for display ads. A lot of people started to feed at the trough that newspapers had long monopolized. Newspapers still do not have the analytical ability to deliver a targeted audience like Google.

Another factor was newspapers had long been such cash cows. Companies did not want to give up lucrative revenue streams like classifeds. Newspaers should have matched Craigs List and given away in-line classifed ads rather than let the business basically disappear. But it is hard to walk away from that much cash and they never responded to all the free on-line competitors.

 

If used correctly, Twitter is simply a platform used to direct users to your website's content. Content which, if used correctly, will serve as a way to get someone to buy that day's paper.

Too often when a story is broken on Twitter, a link is shared to the original news brief of the incident. However, instead of stopping there, the brief on the website is later updated to the full news story which will appear in the next day's paper and a new tweet is sent out with the updated story. When people read the update, there is no longer a need to buy the next day's paper to read about the incident.

Here's the way these things should be handled.
1. Write quick brief on website.
2. Tweet out link to brief. Mention on twitter that full story will be in next issue.
3. Don't update brief online when full story is finished.

You are still online first, but you haven't given users a reason to not buy the next day's paper.

 

Would you ever post full breaking news story online?

 

I'd post it online when the normal online content goes live.

 

Only if it was an emergency, like something weather-related. The papers I've worked for have taken down the paywall for emergencies with the idea that it's more important to inform people in that situation than make a few bucks.

But I agree with the idea that papers shouldn't have been putting up the whole story on the web. I remember years earlier asking my EE why we would expect people to buy the paper when they could get the info online for free, and was told that the suits figured they wouldn't get enough eyeballs and advertisers if they made people pay for online.

Sure enough, years later, there's a paywall, and those suits left with golden parachutes while thousands were laid off.

 

The bottom line is publishers finally realized -- albeit too late -- what actually was important and what actually was the driving force behind the newspaper.

For decades the only thing publishers believed mattered was the advertising. Hell, they hated the newsroom because it was an expense and they couldn't see any financial benefit from it. Even now, they still despise the newsroom because it doesn't provide tangible revenue like a 3-by-5 ad from Billy Bob's Auto Body Repair Shop.

So they gave away the newroom's work for free because they didn't value it. They only valued the advertising. They were so damn stupid, they thought nobody was reading the newspaper other than to see the advertising. I suppose they're eating shit salad now, because local news reporting is all that's left holding them together and when the old people die and their subscriptions are cancelled, that will be the end of the gravy train.

Another 10-15 years and this ship sinks to the bottom of the sea.

 

But when you were 10 did you not at least look at the paper or ask your dad what he was reading? I remember waiting for my dad to finish the NY Post and Daily News so I could at least look at the agate page. Don't go to NYC as much as I used to but the last few times riding the subway, no one who appeared to be under 35 was reading a newspaper. Very few people were reading newspapers and those who were appeared to be at least 40.

 

They had the freedom to rule over a kingdom as a sovereign?

 

Not sure when newspapers will die, but in Albuquerque, the newspaper rack is dead.

Albuquerque Journal publisher: 'People's lifestyles have changed' - Albuquerque Business First