[sohmer]

I find myself recently spending a great deal of thought on the issue of the demise of the newspaper, and everything relating to it.

Everyday, it seems, we are assaulted with business headlines of another newspaper shutting down, massive job cuts and features disappearing by the handful. Is this the way to save a newspaper? Probably not, but then, that’s not what I’ve been concerning myself with. The main questions I’ve been posing are: Can the newspaper be saved? Or more importantly, should it be?

A newspaper is a medium, in which to share information. When any other medium in history has reached the end of it’s usefulness, it’s been allowed to gracefully retire, to make way for the next step in evolution.

I don’t use carrier pigeons to get in touch with my wife during the day, I use my cell phone. I don’t use my VHS player to watch Band of Brothers, I power on my Samsung Blu-Ray player. Rarely is the day when I use a horse and buggy to get to work, I tend to rely on my automobile.

I don’t pick up a newspaper to get the news, I check multiple sources online, to read about them when they happen, as they happen, not 16 hours later in a newspaper which offers me limited information without the immediate ability to get more.

Are we trying to save the newspaper because our generation still uses it, or because the older generation is nostalgic and refuses to embrace change?

Why would I pay 20$ a month for a subscription to my local paper, when only 5% of it is original content? With the other 95% percent of is syndicated content I can much more easily access online at the Associated Press site? The newspaper model works off of advertising. Big news, so does the web.

I believe local coverage is important, but I believe the current medium in which we get said coverage is done. I want to know what’s happening in Montreal. I want to read material from well educated journalists (not bloggers). Why can’t I do that online?

You want to talk about going green? Why not eliminate the printed newspaper as it is and move it online? Grab a calculator and tell me how many trees that would save?

What the future will bring, I’m not sure, but change isn’t just coming anymore, it’s here.

The medium has evolved.

- Because I can.

Quote of the Day

“There’ll be a bump there will be a bruise
There’ll be alarms and there will be a snooze
There’ll be a path that u will get to choose
There’ll be a win and there will be a lose.”
-Jump Rope, by Blue October

[FutbolDude21586]

Hear, hear! I read at least 90% of my news online. The other 10% I read form the University of Florida's newspaper that covers the local news and UF athletics news.

Newspapers provide a nice middle-ground between jobless and news corporation jobs for journalists and reporters, though. I do agree, however, that the physical newspaper is on it's way out and we're just stalling the inevitable.

[Scarlet Speedster]

http://www.guardian....wire-newspapers

Newspapers last bastion against political corruption, says creator of The Wire

In exclusive interview with the Guardian, writer David Simon expresses fears for newspapers' future and accuses media owners of contempt

Oliver Burkeman in Baltimore
guardian.co.uk, Friday 27 March 2009 13.58 GMT

Fictional corrupt politicians are a mainstay of The Wire, David Simon's celebrated television series about life on the Baltimore streets. But the show's creator says he fears a real-life explosion of rampant corruption in American political life if the newspaper industry, in which he worked for more than a decade, is allowed to collapse.

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, the award-winning writer and producer launches a tirade against newspaper owners who, he says, showed "contempt for their product" and are now reaping the whirlwind. But he rejects the idea that newspapers should seek ways to embrace the new world of free information, arguing that they must urgently start charging money for content distributed online.

"Oh, to be a state or local official in America over the next 10 to 15 years, before somebody figures out the business model," says Simon, a former crime reporter for the Baltimore Sun. "To gambol freely across the wastelands of an American city, as a local politician! It's got to be one of the great dreams in the history of American corruption."

The only hope, Simon insists, is for major news outlets to find a way to collaboratively impose charges for reading online, and to demand fees from aggregators such as Google News, which profit from their journalism. "If you don't have a product that you're charging for, you don't have a product," he says. "If you think that free is going to produce something that's as much of a cost centre as good journalism – because it costs money to do good journalism – you're out of your mind."

The number of readers willing to pay a small fee each month might never rival the heyday of newspaper circulation, but it would attract enough "people who care what's going on in the world" to fund crucial reporting, he maintains. "And once they do that, and go to Google and Yahoo and every other search engine and say: 'No, ain't no free.'" He scoffs at the notion that amateur "citizen journalism", or new online-only outlets, might take the place of newspaper reporters: "The internet does froth and commentary very well, but you don't meet many internet reporters down at the courthouse."

Critics of the paid model for online news argue that it has been tried and rejected – notably at the New York Times, which abandoned its TimesSelect service in 2007 – and that those instances in which it has proved successful, including the Wall Street Journal, are exceptional cases.

They say media outlets must find ways to embrace and profit from the exposure offered by aggregators such as Google News, and that walling off their material will hasten their irrelevance. Anti-trust laws also present severe legal obstacles to collaboration between news organisations.

Jeff Jarvis, a new media consultant who writes a column for the Guardian, said: "The traditionalists are trying to transplant elements of the old business model into a new business reality ... when you put your content behind a wall, you lose more than you gain. You lose a lot of readers and the advertising revenue associated with them, you lose the ability to be discovered by new readers, you lose out to free competitors, of whom there'll be an unlimited supply, and you lose influence, because you're taken out of the conversation."

Having completed five seasons of The Wire and Generation Kill, a mini-series about the Iraq war, Simon is currently shooting a pilot for Treme, his proposed new series about musicians in post-Katrina New Orleans. It will feature at least two veterans of his earlier work: Clarke Peters, who played Lester Freamon in The Wire, and Wendell Pierce, who played Bunk Moreland. If commissioned by HBO, Simon promises, Treme will remain true to the philosophy he pungently encapsulates in the phrase "Fuck the average viewer". His shows, he explains, reject the conventional TV wisdom that everything must be explained upfront, instead demanding intense concentration from viewers, who must grapple with an unfamiliar world.

Rather than writing for a general audience, he says: "I want to write for the guy living the event."

On Monday, BBC2 will start giving The Wire its first airing on British terrestrial television, screening all five seasons in a late-night slot five nights a week.

[Salem Arc]

Well, while there are a lot of jobs created by newspapers, I'd have to agree with you. Granted, I don't support all of them dropping out like flies at once--my grandmother is a district manager at the local newspaper and the job happens to be her only source of income--but having them slowly fade into the background may be a good idea.

I suppose that the reason they hold on so hard is because they're still a very integral part of our society. If there are no newspapers, where will Peter Parker and Clark Kent work? What will we read while on the toilet? What will homeless people sleep under on park benches? What will my puppy pee on in the middle of the night? Not the internet, at least I hope not.

And writers, as well, who get their paychecks by spinning the stories, will be fewer in number and even more with this talent will be out of the job. Instead of forty people writing about the same story across the country being able to take home enough cash to pay the rent, it'll be one person sitting at a desk somewhere in the Yahoo! offices who fears for his job because there's a pack of ravenous, half-starved zombie writers eagerly waiting to take his place. Sure, they can all blog, but that hardly brings in enough income to keep them fed.

As far as the environment goes, there are quite a few things made out of recycled newspaper that keeps them from being waste. The drink holders you get at the drive through? Recycled newspaper. The pinata holding delicious candy for a child's birthday party? Recycled newspaper. The sketchbook sitting beside my computer? Recycled newspaper.

Not to mention that some of this might be stemmed from the fact that there are comic artists who make a decent living off the daily paper. Not everyone is talented enough to make a living off web comics, as you and Lar do.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that not everyone gets their information online, and there is more at stake here than just the twenty dollars you throw out each month and some trees. After all, just because you do things one way does not necessarily mean that everyone does. And while newspapers may be slowly on their way out, I think that even you would be affected if they vanished, say, tomorrow.

Keep up the good work.

[TomWoolf]

I don't believe the major fear of newspapers going out of business is that the particular medium is disappearing. I do enjoy reading the newspaper, and though the content may only be 5% original, it is the significance of that 5% that folks are concerned with.

Newspapers have, for over a hundred years, been the source of major investigations. Even during the heyday of network news (50's, 60's, and 70's), newspapers were the source of the stories with the most impact. Watergate was the big one in my lifetime. And the problem with newspapers disappearing is that the resources that allowed those investigations to occur are disappearing, too. Cable "news" channels are horribly week when it comes to investigative reporting. Shoot - some are simply (or better yet, simplistic) parrots of one of the political parties. They do not have the resources (or choose to expend the resources), nor do they seem to care about real investigations. So if papers disappear, that leaves online sites...

Think about that for a minute. The most popular "investigative" site around is probably The Drudge Report. For some reason, a lot of people like it. But TDR is NOT investigative reporting. It's not even reporting. They find articles on other sites, and link to them. And sometimes, they'll post "site A says XYZ, and site B says it too! It MUST be true!" It is rare that TDR (or most other online news sites) verify that the stories that they refer to or link to are actually true.

So don't blow off newspapers so lightly. They have served a purpose which needs to continually be served. And at the rate things are looking, the baton of investigative reporting will not be passed to online or cable. That will be a true loss.

[sohmer]

I agree with you completely about many points, Tom. But why can't the newspapers take the 5% original content online? Without the cost of printing, how much more money would they have to put into real reporters?

[Tomokun]

Hear, hear! I read at least 90% of my news online. The other 10% I read form the University of Florida's newspaper that covers the local news and UF athletics news.

Newspapers provide a nice middle-ground between jobless and news corporation jobs for journalists and reporters, though. I do agree, however, that the physical newspaper is on it's way out and we're just stalling the inevitable.

This is actually a pretty interesting topic for me (I work in web marketing as a copywriter and consultant). Newspapers are dieing becuase they refuse to change and adapt to the needs of their new market. Its not that the medium itself is failing - just look at the magazine industry and ask Maxim if they are worried about their sales numbers. Its how they approach their niche. Today's marketplace only thrives on specialization, not broad solutions. Yes the orginality of the content is important, but even more so is the specificity. You will ALWAYS have a percentage of clients who will pay for the convenience of door to door delivery of daily content provided that the content has VALUE. How much better would the Wall Street Journal be for the business minded if they focused on content that was DIRECTLY business related as oppossed to spreading "news" and business across their pages like the last bit of jam from the jar?

I do agree that the internet provides a better solution (a free one at that) for getting associated press content, which is EXACTLY why they need to specialize. Spend less time syphoning from the top pics of the associated press and more time creating NEW content/syphoning specialized content from the associated press will fufill the need in the marketplace for easy access to specialized content.

Even the CARRIER PIGEON industry could be revitalized if you keep this concept in mind. For example, I'm willing to bet that you could be a supplier for niche's like the Amish, Ren-fair enthusiasts, as well as conspiracy theorists and militia groups...

Its failure to adapt that kills a medium or company, rarely if ever is it the fault of the medium itself.

[ElPaso69]

I agree Sohmer. When you take out explicit advertisements and the implicit advertisements (like the Auto and Entertainment sections) which are nothing more than advertisements coated as (generally) raving reviews, you're not left with much to begin with.

Then take out the "rip and read" syndicated stuff, and the distractions like puzzles and comics, and you're left with nearly nothing. I think the only thing keeping newspapers afloat is their antiquated titles of "Political Watchdog" and "Investigative Journalism", and perhaps the slightly more heavy focus on local matters than other media.

Those antiquated notions will eventually disappear, once online journalism becomes more well-respected. There's a reason why the Washington Post can be in the White House Press Corps but Perez Hilton can't be. Once serious online journalism becomes more respected, there's nothing stopping those people from becoming the new political watchdogs. And with the ability to disperse not just information but video and photos in almost real time, investigative journalism has the potential to become many times more effective. It also suffers from the potential of being stuck behind pre-sanctioned press events, and these new journalists will need to take extra care to make sure they don't just end up reporting on press releases and politicians' twitter posts.

In the end, I don't think newspapers will stick around for very long. The only time I read them is if I'm somewhere with time to kill AND internet access is limited/cumbersome AND even then its only the front page headlines. When you think about all the infrastructure and resources expended just to put that newspaper on that coffee table in that student lounge, the value in it quickly disappears.

For an interesting take on one way to at least prolong the life of newspapers is here:
http://www.ted.com/i..._newspaper.html. It's a short piece on how to make the most of the print medium to attract eyeballs and convey information, in the way an architect combines form and function when designing buildings.

[kaijuu]

*applauds*
Marshall McLuhan was the person who coined the phrase "the medium is the message." He also developed the Laws of media; a tetrad that describes the effect of various media. All media will ENHANCE, REVERSE, RETRIEVE, and OBSOLESCE... something. So, the media being introduced here? The internet.

The internet:
... ENHANCES communication.
... REVERSES into an information overload, without necessarily being verified information sources.
... RETRIEVES the written word (rather than the spoken, as introduced by the telephone.)
... OBSOLESCES paper communication.

P.S. McLuhan was Canadian.

[Hypnos]

For me personally, I like it when I can feel a newspaper in my hands when I read it, it feels solid, real, trustworthy. And that last word, trustworthy, is what I'm looking for in a newspaper. But I don't get that same feeling when I'm reading news on the internet, not that newssites are necissarely untrustworthy, but it's just that they're on the internet next to an incredibly huge load of BS. And that's where "the medium is the message" comes in. The internet as a whole (which each newssite is a part of) just hasn't earned that trust yet.. and to be honest... I wonder if it ever will...

This post has been edited by Hypnos: 06 April 2009 - 05:58 PM

[squirls08]

While I have nothing to add to the newspaper conversation as I'm totally on your side Sohmer, I would like to compliment you on your quote today. I just recently got that album and am in love with it. His lyrics are some of the best I've ever heard, that goes for all their albums. What did you think of the last song "The End"? I found it amazing!

[CheriD]

Dear Sohmer,
How are you? Did you like the picture of the sword that I sent to you?

I am quite saddened that our city's newspaper will be reduced to three days a week. Not only do I read the local news, but also the ancillatory news. I will miss the articles on the Superman comic selling for thousands of dollars, beers named for religious topics, the fight over Pakistani artifacts...etc. These articles are not easily found on the internet.

Sincerely,
Cheri

[Oook]

Just my thoughts on the matter and some of the comments above, I don't mean to say that they're right or not. Just really chipping in with my two bobs-worth

I agree local media serve a purpose supplying quality local news. I also agree with the idea that there shouldn't be anything which stops this content being available online. I also think more and more people will transition to getting their news online.

However, with regard to investigative reporting it's interesting. If you look at the academic literature about media-state relations, most scholars suggest that the media's reporting actually follows elite opinion. Most instances of investigative reporting/ media opposition are when there is significant institutional opposition or disensus amongst elites. What this really means is that you have to question the image of the media as watchdogs acting in the public interest. What I guess I'm saying is that this idea is a poor rationale for 'saving' newspapers in their traditional form. The media will still report what the media will report.

[bpiraeus]

Sohmer,

While I agree that the the newspapers are dieing off, it's not because the medium is dead, it's because the people producing them are -brain dead-. Would you next claim that books are a thing of the past because of the Kindle and other ilk of it's kind? I surely hope not, pushing a button or whatever mechanism they have (I've not bothered to even look at them) for turning a page has no place in my mind, or heart. There is no replacement for sitting down in your favorite spot with a cup of tea/coffee/whatever, and reading the paper, or a book. There is a catharsis in the necessity of reaching up and turn that page with your own hands, to feel the paper, the physicality of it is somehow fulfilling.

Don't blame the medium for it's own misuse, blame those who misuse it and have caused it to become what we see it to be today. Much like I don't blame the TV for not having anything good to watch, I blame the people who produce the mindless garbage (American Idol anyone?) that entertains the hordes of sheep who tune in regularly so they can make sure they don't actually need to fire more than the 2 or 3 synapses a day required to keep breathing, eating, and pooping.

I often agree with your diatribes, and I can understand your perspective on this one, it's just that, in the end, I think you're wrong this time.

This post has been edited by bpiraeus: 06 April 2009 - 10:03 PM

[Aristera]

We can't kill of newspapers. They are essential for time travelers to find out what the date is. Could you imagine appearing in 2145 not knowing what the date is and not having a newspaper conveniently near buy to tell you whats going on and when you are with out looking like a nut job asking strangers "What year is it?!" Oh you want to use the internet to tell you wants going on? Forget it, your brain implant network interface chip (or INIC for short) is from a different time and totally incompatible with that years technology. With out a proper INIC and lack of ID you would be locked up as a nut job and totally unable to avert the nuclear disaster.

And what about post apocalypse? With out newspapers there would be no way for the surviving future generations to piece together their shattered past one news story at a time. Computers will be incompatible with the limited resources of the future and all information would be lost save for the printed paper.

[Inujo]

I find it hard to believe all the Newspapers that spout being green and want us to give up toilet paper!

I live in a small town. We have a county paper that covers just the county stuff but it's only once a week so your not getting any new flashes there, but they have calendar of events, meetings of all sorts, birth, wedding and death announcements and mostly the greatest form of entertainment ..the police records.

The next "big" town over has two papers..Courier and Press..now a Scripts Howard paper so it's actually owned by another company some place. It hasn't yet gone the way of the major papers, it still pretty much all local news. So someplaces in the America's there still exist actual jouralist not just prompter readers. HOWEVER, the API stories seem like they are written my high school students compared to the local staff writers.

Now, after saying all that I have to say that I only read any of it if they happen to be in front of me. I do know people that constant ask me if I read the paper today. I have one friend that I always reply, "No, what did I miss? A cow got loose again?"

[deeznuts33442]

The Seattle P-I just moved to an all-online format, one of the largest newspapers to do such. Other newspapers might soon start doing the same.

Article here

This post has been edited by deeznuts33442: 07 April 2009 - 12:35 AM

[Alise]

The thing about reading everything on the computer is that it really does start to hurt my eyes. I enjoy reading the newspaper, and I enjoy reading things online. There's something nice though, about the newspaper showing up on your doorstep. Sure, it's not just for you, but it just feels right. I dunno, that's just my opinion.

[dogolopee]

First there are not alot of AP reporters and the AP often gets its stories from the local newspaper reporters (and tv stations that are ap affiliates)

Then you have the problems of only a few agencies controlling the news and not alot of actual reporters covering the news in depth.

ending papers will not help the environment. for the love of god learn some science and somethign about the paper and tree farming industry. Young trees use up more co2 than older trees. Thus cleaning more co2 from the air. Also trees used for newspapers come from tree farms. There the trees are grown in rotation for the purpose of making paper. Older ones cut down new ones planted more co2 saved and sequestered in the paper. Papers thrown away or used to make other materials sequester the carbon in them preventing it from reentering the air.

Online means a server and an need for power that requires for now the burning of fossil fuels to make that power and the power of those computers connecting to the server to see the news.

Then you get into preservation. A well kept paper can last in the archives for over 100yrs, most digital media half that if your lucky.

[Goju Kaze]

Well, that's a hard question for me.

On one side, yes going all green and eliminating paper would be a good thing. Saving cost in the printing departement may allow either a reduction of cost (good, the cheaper it is, the more can afford it) or increase budgets in investigation/analysis department.

On the other side, the newspaper can alter itself to remove immediate news flash (better covered with immediate data flow like internet and all news channels) to make more emphasis and analysis to what happens in the world at large, and more community stuff. I find that in this age of immediate information we are running with immediacty, and generaly lack a backseat position, and follow up some lead (when you get a news flash, you may miss the evolution, correction or even denial of said "fact"). That, for me, is where the newspaper should go as a direction, not the way of internet.

There are also three things that bother me. One, it's hard to modify what in print and in public domain. It's not so hard to alter what digital and has no physical evidence. Two, when you rely too much on "virtual" data, what happens when you lack acces or ways of accessing. Three, while most of us here are computer litterate (duh, captain obvious here), how many on this planet are? Shall we bar them from the news?