The Day The Newspapers Shut Down Their Sites

Wow, you really have me pegged, huh?

I'm actually pro-information. Yes, I am an online person but I also am a lifetime newspaper reader who works for a newspaper site (and wrote for newspapers previously). I just prefer not to bury my head in the sand.

But feel free to try and hurl insults if that makes you feel better.

 

You didn't sell nearly enough of those to support even a small newsroom. If you had, the industry would be bowing to you and you'd be counting your billions. But the pennies you're talking about are insignificant.

 

I'll feel free to tell you that you didn't answer my question.

 

I've mentioned this before: I really doubt that reading news is a main activity for Internet users. Surveying this crowd will skew the sample, naturally. And newspapers, if they go only online, will be on a Wild West playing field that's not amenable to what they are as a resource that is not a priority where they would be.

But per my first tagline, wish newspapers would do one or the other.

 

Well, it was a strawman question. I don't want newspapers to die. I also can't predict the future. I'm sure in 1910 newspapers thought they'd always be the only source of information.

 

One glaring part of the problem, as I see it, is that many readers, listeners and/or viewers -- or potential ones -- seemingly do not really care very much about this.

The younger generation's interests and habits, and those of much of the rest of the population, in general, are more global now. Electronic advances and the fast pace of people's lifestyles have helped make them that way.

Because of that, newspapers must focus on their electronic entity -- and start charging for it at some point.

Are we really sure people actually expect to get their news online for free, forever and always? Or are we, perhaps, just "getting into their heads" and deciding that for them, unnecessarily?

Maybe people are just taking it online for free because that's how we've offered it to them. I would, and do.

But, I also know that if the paper that I really like and want to look at every day suddenly decided to charge, I'd probably be ticked off, stay away for a week, grouse about how I couldn't see the things I wanted to read, and then, after a few days, I'd break down, and break out my credit card number or PayPal, and sign up for access.

It's really that simple. If people really want something, they will pay for it -- unless we allow them to have it without doing so.

Let's not forget, we're not talking about shutting down any papers' Web site forever. I do think two weeks is too long. But one week? Why not? I think every paper in the country should do it. Together. And then start up again a week later with similar pay-per-view or subscription plans.

And then they need to get serious about the major online advertising issues that also exist and need resolutions.

Newspapers must do something to start over, and, hopefully, change people's habits and expectations. And they need to not worry about TV stations while they do it. I'm with Frank. It's the TV stations that rely on newspaper staffs, not the other way around.

 

Lantaur: Who's breaking the next Watergate if there are no newspapers? It's a simple question. Who will cover a city council meeting dispassionately if there are no newspapers?

 

I have a slightly better sense of what I sold than you do, Frank.

 

Actually, dools, according to the Pew research report, 70 percent of U.S. adults on the internet use it to read the news.

 

As their main activity? As, for the most part, anything more than a quick glimpse at ESPN or CNN or Yahoo, which I'm sure was counted as a news site tho it is used for so much more?

 

I seriously doubt you could find a single person on the planet who says their main activity for using the internet is reading news. It's fourth behind email, search engines and general research.

But 70 percent is still a hefty number that you can't deny. It's also a 70 percent market that isn't being properly tapped as a monetary resource.

 

Ten years ago I was telling anyone who would listen that when everyone has access to the same information, there will still be a need for good storytelling, for someone to put the information in perspective and historical context, for someone to render informed opinions, for someone to entertain and enlighten, for someone to ... tell me a story, as Moddy says.

Of course, not everyone will have access to the same information. There will always be something the people we used to call our readers won't know but should know. That said, my first paragraph still means everything to me in this context: If you want to have a place on the information superhighway (the term everyone was using 10 years ago), you won't get there by giving people less than you gave them before.

Invest in the product. Go the extra mile. Then go another. Make people wake up every day thinking that if they don't read your product, they'll miss something important. Make yourself indispensable. Make your product a must-read. It's the only way.

I saw the opposite of that in the past 10 years, and I see more of it every day. Someone will eventually have to figure out a way to do what I was advocating long before we saw this day (Rocky Mountain News) coming. I don't have all of the answers, and I certainly don't mean to make it sound like I'm the only one who has been saying this, but tonight I was remembering my words and how most industry people I told them to in 1998 and 1999 just looked at me as if I were a ghost.

We were taking college news releases that were available on the Internet and putting them in the paper -- sometimes edited, sometimes not. I would often say, "Won't people eventually figure out they can get this straight from the school Web sites? Why are we spending so many man-hours and column inches on this?" Because we've always run the releases and "trainers" of the state schools, I was told. Well, that worked in 1985, because people couldn't read them on www.nsudemons.com or the many other college Web sites. Now they can.

Go out and bust your ass giving people what they can't get anywhere else. Stop spending your time being that guy in "Office Space" who prompts Bob Slydell to ask, "What would you say you do here?" Stop being that guy x 10 by being a paper that is spinning its wheels losing its mission.

Make people absolutely need to read your stuff, and make them pay to read it. It's the only way.

I hope someone figures out the model(s) soon, but I think we're on the cusp of a long nuclear winter before we can grow something nutritious and sustaining again. I fear it's going to get much worse before it gets better, before people realize what they've lost and what it really means. Someone needs to have the right plan ready and make the product indispensable.

I hope to be around when that happens. I'd like to be telling some of those stories.