The Slow Motion Farce of the Newspapers.
The thrilling headline in the WSJ.com is that the NYT is threatening to disappear its step child the Boston Globe. The issue is union give-backs, but that is just the start of the argument. Newspapers no longer make sense. Newspapers are especially aimless here in the deeply wired and Iphoned up Northeast. The NYT geniuses paid $1.1 billion for the Globe in '93 and have watched the money burn ever since, so that what remains may be worth $12 million. Meanwhile the NYT is playing a version of the Chekhov story about a man in a troika running from wolves who feeds the pack everything until he is what's left to feed them. Why do newspapers resist doom? Embrace it. The notion of opening and reading my NYT, WSJ and FT in the morning is silly. I will make them go away before they go away. Online is the world. There is no meaning to printed paper. The New York Times and the Boston Globe are dead trees walking. Did you notice that POTUS didn't call on you at the last White House presser? POTUS doesn't read your greasy paper version. Show up as videographers who blog, waving a Mino Flip and a wi-fi Macbook, and you will get attention. We are supposed to wait until tomorrow morning to learn what you just heard me say?
What Next?
Online reporting is vital. I work with Dow Jones and Bloomberg and the FT and WSJ reporters routinely, and there has never in a thousand years been a wilder, more romantic time to be a journalist than now. Everything on this planet and the next one hundred just like it we discover is in need of complete rewrite with quotes and pics. The publishers who hold onto newsprint, and paper books, and the useless glossy magazines, are peculiar creatures. Like watching men and women explain that there is no having to fix a horse's engine. I loved newspapers when I was young. I delivered the Philadelphia Bulletin when I was 13 years old, making $7.00 a week. Loved the smell of the just delivered bundle, loved the attention I received when I rode my bike with papers in the basket. I was a time traveller as a newsie. It is gone with the 20th century. The Boston Globe in newsprint is laughable. Everything you need is at Boston.com. And the websites only grow stronger and faster with video, and live news links, and live blogging. Yes, there must be editorial control; however we can sort this out. What does not get solved is the dead trees. Close the building, scatter the editorial staff to the four corners, outsource everything to freelancers, send Kindles to your subscribers, blog.
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Monetizing is the problem, I guess. Much like the music industry suffers. If forward thinking means peering into next week or month or even next year, then it is backwards thinking.
Wasn't that indelible ink they used supposed to cause cancer? I use the fliers and newspapers that blow in at the river to clean the glass and mirrors around the tent. Works better than paper towels and it's free!!
And, of course, not wanting to put burnt petroleum from starter fluids into the atmosphere, I use them for my campfire cooking. Flame from newspaper fires up Kindle pretty good!
I’ve been waiting for this one and I don’t quite agree. There are plenty of us who still like to page through a newspaper along with morning coffee. It’s like reading a real book before turning the light off at night. The electronic version just does not work well with milk and cookies, or sleeping pills. The problem with newspapers is content.
I remember quite clearly what caused me to cancel home delivery of our own local NJ rag. It was Thanksgiving. I went down the driveway and collected the paper. By the time I got back, the kettle was boiling. I poured myself coffee and opened up the paper. There were no less than six editorials trashing the tradition. I picked up the phone and cancelled.
I dare say, even if the NYT went totally on line, it wouldn’t get enough hits to justify the effort. Everybody can already predict what they’re going to say. If they were honest about it and didn’t pretend to be right down the middle – if they came right out with it and proudly displayed the hammer and sickle on the mast – it might even be tolerable. It’s the hypocrisy that gets you right in the pit of your stomach.
People simply are sick of slanted reporting and biased editorials. Better to go paperless and save a tree. News blogs are great, but in the real world they’ll never replace the printed word. Even if it’s ultimately used to line the bird cage or wrap fish, there’s no equal to a good paper; one that doesn’t make you feel all dirty after having read it.
As managing editor of a science journal, I'll add to Peter's comments that it does appear there is a sizable segment out there who still really want that tangible object to touch and smell, to carry with them for those odd moments of reading and reflection that are all too rare. However, the far bigger impetus right now is to move all content online and abandon paper -- paper and postage are too expensive, and more and more people don't want print anyway. The problem of many journals and smaller magazines is that advertisers aren't following to online; and, those that do aren't paying as much as they did for print space. How do you pay for your operations? An online presence, with an ever-growing array of audio and video features, is not cheap. We all need a new business model. The online newspapers will pave the way.
I used to live in Soho. It's supposedly an Historic District. Many years ago, the city got federal money to put in new belgian block streets. We got fliers saying the stone sidewalks wouldn't be touched. They were. The sides of the huge 9" granite slabs were cut off to put in curbs. The destruction went on for months and months. I wrote the Times. I said the slabs came from Upstate NY and were floated down the Hudson in Clipper Ships, used as ballast. I spoke to a reporter. She wanted a 'human interest' story with a picture of me. I said, 'no'. Take a picture of what's being destroyed. The Times never got the story right. The photo looked like mud. But the architects for the Mercer Hotel, which was being renovated at the time, saw the article and were able to save their own granite sidewalks. I couldn't read the Times after that. But no blog can save even a portion of a sidewalk.
DEAD TREES TALKING.
THE POWER OF THE PRESS.
Freedom of Speech isn't about being able to go to the G20 meeting with placards saying whatever stupid thing comes to mind. It's about the Fourth Estate. It's about having a free press with the ear of the people and the power to persuade. Of course, papers push their own agenda. But without papers, politicians will be totally unchecked. And that's a brave new world I don't want to live in.
The destruction of print by the internet reminds me of an interview you had, John, with an author who described a meeting between Steve Jobs and some record moguls. These moguls couldn't stop piracy and, certainly, couldn't understand the sheer brilliance of iPod/iTunes. That was their misfortune. But are we better off without these greedy, stupid titans of the record industry? They were the editors who gave us the music the likes of which we will never see again. Luckily, we can still hear it. On iTunes.
When the internet is finally censored, how will we even know it?
People don't understand and retain what they read as well when they read it on a screen. I love the paper version of the WSJ and will stick with it for as long as they print it and do not double the price too many more times. As for online being so great, I like to read in places where internet doesn't reach, or where it would be silly to carry a computer, even a small, hand-held one. Finally, I like printed material, and even if I get my news on the internet, I still print off anything of value and save it for later reference. Of course, I can't print off these priceless little Simon Constable/John Batchelor videos, but I'm not saying the printed word has to be my ONLY source of news & entertainment, just my primary one. And as for dead trees, well, as Aule said in the Silmarillon, "Men will have need of wood". Are we really getting into conservationism now? "There goes the neighborhood...."
assuredly, I like my books
Unions are killing the papers, blogs, Network TV, and e-zines are increasingly non-unionized. Printer, Trucking, and newspaper unions are slow to even mention givebacks let alone negotiate.
Teamster and printing unions are afraid if they give in at the local paper, they would have to give in to magazines, other printing gigs as well. They would rather sacrifice newspapers than have their members "give back" on work rules or meaningful cuts in wages and benefits.
Union economics are much different than market economics, Union leaders are short term focused and serve only their members, who like wall st. titans are focused on the next quarter rather than long term viability.
I totally am loving this post, totally gonna have to remember to add this to my blogroll.