End Times

[ghost of miles]

End Times

I don't subscribe to the paper edition of the NY Times, but I buy it off the stand here in Bloomington once or twice a week... it will be a bummer if/when (and this piece makes it sound like it's more of a "when") the print edition vanishes.

[Chalupa]

Thanks for the link. Kind of weird to imagine a world w/out the the print edition of the Times. I mean since I was in college my Sunday morning ritual has consisted of walking the dogs, getting some coffee, and laying around reading the Times.

I'm starting to wonder about the health of our local free alt. weeklies too. I've noticed that in the past few weeks they have become alarming thin.

[ghost of miles]

Sunday's definitely one of the days when I'm most inclined to pick up the Times. I imagine that they'll make it through the looming challenge in May, but it sounds like the writing's on the wall even for them.

[Dan Gould]

I would be shocked if the Times didn't survive, largely intact, as a trophy property of someone like Rupert Murdoch.

In fact, the thought of Murdoch in charge and Krugman and Dowd out on the street almost makes me giddy.

[Ted O'Reilly]

I wonder if they might consider just publishing the dead-tree version on Sundays? The UK has quite a few "Sunday papers"...could it work on this side of the Atlantic?

[7/4]

I haven't read the print version in years. The web version, I read all the time.

dB

[ejp626]

I haven't read the print version in years. The web version, I read all the time.

Yeah, that's what most of us do. However, my impression is that they will never be able to achieve the same advertising revenue from an online only edition. And we all know how well the paying for editorial content experiment went. I personally can't see how they will be able to raise enough revenue to pay for a reasonably-sized stable of beat reporters once they go to on-line only.

Same thing with the Associated Press (AP). Even before the financial crisis, 100 papers have taken steps to pull out of AP (including the Chicago Tribune and LA Times). You think Americans are ignorant of world events now, just wait until the local papers stop carrying AP stories.

Reporting news (as opposed to blathering about the news and blogging on the backs of newspaper reporting) is expensive, and no one seems willing to pay for it. Once these papers collapse and the AP dissolves, I just don't think the replacements will be adequate. It's the tragedy of the commons writ large.

[papsrus]

It's not addressed until near the end, but I prefer to see the glass as half-full:

What would a post-print Times look like? Forced to make a Web-based strategy profitable, a reconstructed Web site could start mixing original reportage with Times-endorsed reporting from other outlets with straight-up aggregation. This would allow The Times to continue to impose its live-from-the-Upper-West-Side brand on the world without having to literally cover every inch of it. In an optimistic scenario, the remaining reporters—now reporters-cum-bloggers, in many cases—could use their considerable savvy to mix their own reporting with that of others, giving us a more integrative, real-time view of the world unencumbered by the inefficiencies of the traditional journalistic form. Times readers might actually end up getting more exposure than they currently do to reporting resources scattered around the globe, and to areas and issues that are difficult to cover in a general-interest publication.

The issue of what advertisers will do was mostly skirted in the article, and advertisers, not subscribers, are the main source of revenue. If the print edition ceases, the advertisers who want to remain with the Times brand (or, in the case of your local newspaper, remain with that local brand) may very well flood to the web edition as part of that hurricane of change the article talks about up top.

Edited January 8, 2009 by papsrus

[papsrus]

More spit-ballin' by Dan Froomkin on the subject in a posting titled "What can Google Do for Journalism?:

Off the top of my head:

* “Adopt” a handful of newspapers, and help them build technologically-sophisticated Web sites, with an emphasis on micro-local and business-to-consumer relationships. For instance, local papers need ways to database local advertising, local content, and information on local readers — then serve up ads based on psycho-graphic and geographic information. Newspapers can’t seem to figure this out by themselves. Then make the technology available to others.

* Create and endow an independent nonprofit; put esteemed journalists on its board; let them buy newspapers from owners who are wringing them dry and run them as nonprofits.

* Create an open-source journalism wire service, hiring excellent laid-off reporters to do great narrative and investigative work that’s free for the picking.

* Fund a short-term project to hire laid-off journalists from across the country, connect them virtually with hot programmers, and see what they come up with.

* Create a journalist-mediated repository of citizen journalism. Hire professional journalists to “accredit” excellent citizen journalism and train citizen journalists.

* Create “endowed chairs” for bloggers who can then quit their day-jobs and do actual reporting as well as blogging.

* Contribute to nonprofit journalistic ventures and foundations, i.e. ProPublica, NewAssignment.net – and NiemanWatchdog.org.

Not sure about some of his ideas, but he's just throwing ideas out there.

As has been mentioned before, we are in the "information age," where the demand for reliable, accurate, useful information is increasing, not decreasing. Just because the means of delivering this information, in the case of newspapers, is changing does not necessarily mean the end of so-called watch-dog journalism. In fact, quiet likely just the opposite, IMO.

I think it is quite obvious that newspapers as a means of delivering information are fast becoming relics of the past.

[Rooster_Ties]

You know, the NYT's "Weekender" TV ads are getting more and more tempting all the time. And now (after reading this article, the one starting this thread), I'm suddenly seriously thinking of getting their dead-tree "Weekender" subscription package (Fri, Sat & Sun editions for cheap), almost as a sort of protest against the fall of print journalism.

I turn 40 in a couple months, and I only know ONE person under the age of 40 who subscribes to the local paper (Kansas City Star) -- and that person is a friend who has run for political office a couple times.

And the place I work is about 60% "under 40" people, and NOT ONE of them subscribes to the paper, nor do many of them ever read ANY of it online either ('cept when their older colleagues send them links to articles).

Some times I want to tell them, WTF people??!!!!, do you not give a damn at all about what's going on around us?? (Locally and regionally speaking, that is.) And I work for an Environmental not-for-profit, so I KNOW these people care about the world -- their whole frickin' career is caring about the world around them.

Edited January 8, 2009 by Rooster_Ties

[ejp626]

The issue of what advertisers will do was mostly skirted in the article, and advertisers, not subscribers, are the main source of revenue. If the print edition ceases, the advertisers who want to remain with the Times brand (or, in the case of your local newspaper, remain with that local brand) may very well flood to the web edition as part of that hurricane of change the article talks about up top.

Obviously I am deeply pessimistic, since I see that Americans prefer to avoid depressing news (and certainly don't want to pay for it); shiny happy features are all that will thrive in a post-print news media world. But more fundamentally, the thing about on-line papers is how easy it is to avoid the ads. And if they become more ubiquitous there will be an arms race in Explorer and Firefox on how to bypass them. But let's say for argument's sake that the same quantity of ads in the print media was forced upon on-line readers. So you'd have to scroll through page after page of used cars and bra ads to get to the news content. I can't see that, and I don't think most advertisers do either. And when advertisers do make the switch on-line, they overwhelmingly have been going to Craigslist and other basically free sites. This is the reason that all the free weeklies like the Chicago Reader and the Seattle Weekly are getting thinner and will probably go under soon without those property rental ads (this is certainly true of the Reader, whose parent company has gone bankrupt). And I suspect that the Village Voice's days are numbered as well, based on all the layoffs there.

[papsrus]

The issue of what advertisers will do was mostly skirted in the article, and advertisers, not subscribers, are the main source of revenue. If the print edition ceases, the advertisers who want to remain with the Times brand (or, in the case of your local newspaper, remain with that local brand) may very well flood to the web edition as part of that hurricane of change the article talks about up top.

Obviously I am deeply pessimistic, since I see that Americans prefer to avoid depressing news (and certainly don't want to pay for it); shiny happy features are all that will thrive in a post-print news media world. But more fundamentally, the thing about on-line papers is how easy it is to avoid the ads. And if they become more ubiquitous there will be an arms race in Explorer and Firefox on how to bypass them. But let's say for argument's sake that the same quantity of ads in the print media was forced upon on-line readers. So you'd have to scroll through page after page of used cars and bra ads to get to the news content. I can't see that, and I don't think most advertisers do either. And when advertisers do make the switch on-line, they overwhelmingly have been going to Craigslist and other basically free sites. This is the reason that all the free weeklies like the Chicago Reader and the Seattle Weekly are getting thinner and will probably go under soon without those property rental ads (this is certainly true of the Reader, whose parent company has gone bankrupt). And I suspect that the Village Voice's days are numbered as well, based on all the layoffs there.

Hm. Yeah, it's a tough nut to crack -- how to shift advertising to the web. I think it would be a mistake for advertisers to simply superimpose the print model on the web and force readers to scroll through pages of ads, as you describe. With the web, of course, you can have a single ad window that rotates a variety of ads. The Internet also offers an opportunity for a wide range of interactive features in ads that obviously aren't available in print. I'm thinking of, say, an ad that invites you to test drive their new hybrid car on your typical daily drive (Google maps?) and see how much money you could save in a year -- stuff like that.

The other side of the equation is that a web-only publication is a lot less expensive to produce, so, I would imagine require a lot less advertising dollars to turn a profit. There's also the enhanced capability for networking and cross-branding (or whatever the term is) on the web, where I promote your stuff and you promote mine and we all get more eyeballs and, therefore, higher dollar ads, etc.

The real message of the article to me was that the shift is likely going to be dramatic and messy, not gradual and graceful. And while the Times and other leading news sources will certainly struggle with the changes, they are adapting. If they don't, they'll be gone. But I pick up links to NYT articles on this very forum all the time. And the article did mention, if I recall correctly, that some of the web-based properties the company owns were turning a profit.

But I can't disagree with Rooster_Ties that the under-40 set really doesn't give a shit one way or the other, and that's a whole other problem, I guess.

[ejp626]

The other side of the equation is that a web-only publication is a lot less expensive to produce, so, I would imagine require a lot less advertising dollars to turn a profit. There's also the enhanced capability for networking and cross-branding (or whatever the term is) on the web, where I promote your stuff and you promote mine and we all get more eyeballs and, therefore, higher dollar ads, etc.

I suspect that, just as with transit systems, the physical stuff is expensive, but the salaries/benefits are the vast majority of costs at newspapers, so going on-line isn't going to help much (and will probably be worse as a lot of advertisers won't follow them). Now sure if a bunch of journalism school majors decide to become unpaid interns for life then that model would be sustainable (or we all become potential feeds to CNN -- check out their iReporter stuff some time) but in terms of professional journalism that led to uncovering government or corporate malfeasance, I think that is pretty much over. Most reporters at all but the largest papers just retype PR releases anyway.

But I can't disagree with Rooster_Ties that the under-40 set really doesn't give a shit one way or the other, and that's a whole other problem, I guess.

Yeah, this is the real problem, and as we discussed elsewhere it is absolutely clear that standards are slipping and that wiki is going to be considered "good enough" for anything except graduate level work, and that's some depressing shit.

[Guy Berger]

I'm indifferent to the disappearance of the print NYT, but it would be a real shame if the online version disappeared.

I wonder if they've considered shifting their pricing model to one approximating a luxury good - their reader base is relatively affluent.

Guy

[ghost of miles]

One of Seattle's two dailies may be on the verge of going bust as well.

[ejp626]

Well, more negative changes coming to Chicago. I am probably most bummed that the Reader has decided to no longer carry all reviews while a play is in performance, though in this case the review is still on-line, and I guess I will adapt fairly quickly. Still, there was something great about being able to skim through 3, 4, even more pages of theatre reviews to let you know that Chicago was a great theatre town.

The Tribune is shifting to a smaller "tabloid" format, though they will allow home delivery subscriber to get the old format. Frankly, this seems like a totally stupid decision. Doesn't this mean twice as much set up time at the printing press? They'll end up forcing the subscribers to get the tabloid format eventually (it's inevitable) so I don't know why they don't bite the bullet now.

Sun Times is looking like it will be bankrupt within the year, and is trying to extract more concessions from its workers. Indeed, it is moving copyediting to India!

And more and more professional writers are being seduced into giving it away for free: http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stor...hottype/090115/ Again it's just hard to see that this is a sustainable model. What we will be left with when the last major daily goes on-line exclusively? Mostly puff pieces and more blogs about popular culture. Little if any reporting on science, economics, world events. Well, as the saying goes, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

[papsrus]

Boston Globe cutting 50 newsroom positions. Voluntary buyouts first, followed by layoffs if the voluntary thing doesn't attract 50 employees. A somewhat telling comment from a reader reacting to the news:

You are right. TV-week was a last strock. I cancelled after it

[papsrus]

I touched on this in this thread, or a related thread, earlier. The problem newspapers face is not that they are not making money on an operating basis. It's that they have too much debt to service (much like the rest of America). This TPM entry outlines the problem.

(...)

But, most of these businesses are still fine on an operating basis (i.e., they make money before interest and taxes). Having gone public (seemed like a good idea at the time given the 20% margins, etc.) and subsequently having been leveraged to the hilt, they are getting killed on debt-service as well as in the public equity markets (which prices assets based on future growth potential). For goodness sakes, every single operating entity owned by the now bankrupt Tribune Company is making money - but, Sam Zell (and John Madigan before him) loaded the company up with so much debt, there is no way out other than a bankruptcy judge.

(...)

Of course, I suppose you could make the same argument about debt for a lot of other industries that are in trouble today. Still, this might lend support to the notion that the newspaper model, while certainly shifting (online), is not quite dead yet. TV was supposed to kill radio. Didn't happen. Maybe there's some sort of parallel with newspapers vs. online?