Newspapers must move to a new business model that shifts the focus to the Internet. They must do it now.
The news from the newspaper industry in the last week has been disturbing. The New York Times is borrowing some $225 million against its headquarters building to free up cash. Tribune Co., which publishes the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The Miami Herald, and the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, have joined the list of newspapers that are for sale.
The Rocky Mountain News is owned by E.W. Scripps Co., which closed down the Albuquerque Tribune earlier this year after it failed to find a buyer, and there seems to be a good chance the Denver paper is headed for the same fate.
When I was studying journalism in college 10 years ago, professors predicted that the shift to the Internet was 50 years away. But the ease of accessing information on the Internet and advances in technology, coupled with the failure of newspapers to adapt and the current economic woes, means the climax of that shift is upon us.
Newspapers are currently in as bad a spot as the ailing American automotive industry that is about to get a big, taxpayer-funded bailout. I believe many newspapers are going to shut their doors for good during this economic downturn, crippling watchdog journalism in some communities. The biggest threat is in smaller towns, where big-city corporations have that have snatched up little papers for years to try to boost profits are likely to, in some cases, give up on those endeavors.
Such towns usually have one daily newspaper and draw less attention from television and Internet journalists than larger cities. Towns of thousands or tens of thousands of people could literally be left without a reliable journalistic source of information about their local government and other news when their daily newspaper stops publishing. At best, they might be left with an alternative weekly.
Clearly, the newspaper industry needs a new business model.
Leaping off a proverbial cliff
I recently had a long conversation with a newspaper editor about the future of the industry. He was generally at a loss for solutions, as are most newspaper executives. I don’t have great ideas either. But I know that it’s possible to make money online. As an independent, online journalist, I’ve been making a living that way for almost three years through a combination of advertising sales on my news Web site, financial contributions from readers of my site and contract work for other media organizations.
Though I was effectively leaping off a proverbial cliff when I left behind a stable paycheck, employer-paid health insurance and employer contributions to my 401(k) in May 2006 to start my own business, it’s worked thus far. And, despite the economic downturn, my little business appears poised to survive.
Meanwhile, I know newspaper journalists who have had to change jobs because of the Albuquerque Tribune’s closing, many of them leaving the business altogether for other work. I know other journalists who are simply out of work.
I almost hate to say this out loud, because I don’t like and even fear what is happening to newspapers, but the reality is that, to survive, many are going to have to scale back staffs even further than they already have and — even more difficult to fathom — stop publishing daily print editions.
That will be unfair to many people, primarily from older generations, who may not have the access or skills to use the Internet, but in some communities, newspapers won’t have another choice. Some will have to publish primarily online, choosing to continue publishing perhaps a weekly print edition on Sunday or another day.
The future is upon us
It’s going to happen in the next few years. In fact, it’s already happened in Madison, Wis., but there’s another paper still publishing daily print editions in that city. Pretty soon, it will happen in a city where there is only one daily.
The shift will probably continue at first in smaller and mid-sized cities like Madison, where such a bold move would get widespread trade-publication exposure but not necessarily make the front page of the New York Times if it fails.
This has already been an ugly transition to the Internet, and that will continue. There will be fewer journalists working for newspapers. In the interim, more non-profit, online-only news organizations will spring up, like the New Mexico Independent (for which I write), but many journalists won’t be able to find such work and will have to change careers.
Which is a big part of the explanation for why this hasn’t happened more quickly. What editor wants to cut his staff in half? But I fear that the newspaper industry’s failure to move more quickly toward an Internet publication model (which involves a lot more than creating the nice Web sites many newspapers have) is a big part of the reason many more newspapers will shut their doors in the coming months and years as the nation struggles through what will be, at best, an incredibly deep recession.
I’m not sure what journalism in America will look like on the other side of the economic downturn — and I fear what the change could mean for democracy when there are fewer and fewer watchdogs — but the change appears to be inevitable, like it or not. And it’s here — now.
My hope is that the free flow of information and news will continue, as it always has.