While there are some in the local blogging world who would welcome the demise of our local paper and gleefully post any scrap of bad news about its performance, the truth is that a majority of those polled in a recent Pew Institute survey would miss having a daily newspaper in their community and feel losing the paper would hurt civic life.
On the other hand, newspapers are losing their market share in the news dissemination industry, a trend that’s accelerating among younger people asked in the study.
Aside from a handful of letters to the editor I’m not one who has contributed to the local newspaper, but I do toil on occasion in the blogging business. Unfortunately I think part of the problem with the newspaper industry stems from content rather than convenience.
There’s no question that once an edition is put to bed that it’s static and obsolete. As an example, today’s edition of the Daily Times came to most homes early this morning so if you read it upon your return home from work the news is probably at least 18 hours old if not over 24 hours past. Compare this with the instantaneous nature of television, radio, or the internet and there’s no contest.
However, where newspapers can have their place is in delivering news and commentary which isn’t necessarily time-sensitive but brings key points or analysis of a particular story to the table. For example, a newspaper can go relatively in-depth with what City Council does and why they may be acting as they are on a particular issue. Where most fall short is attempting to serve the twin masters of content which is as fresh as possible (but cannot compete with other media) and laying out every possible fact and angle to a particular story. (This area is where blogs tend to shine.)
As well, the newspaper tends to be the permanent record of that which goes on in a particular community moreso than radio, television, or internet archives which are relatively sketchy for the most part.
The biggest problem newspapers have though is steadily declining revenues. As circulation falls, the amount they can charge advertisers also ratchets downward – meanwhile, the demand for print advertising drops off as well because fewer eyes are reading the newspaper and cost-effectiveness is lost. I can see where newspapers have had to cut back and several notable ones have locked the doors for good (most notably on a local basis the Baltimore Examiner.)
But in the not-so-distant future I see a day where the actual paper in a newspaper will be rarely seen. Those who put together newspapers now will become news gathering organizations slugging it out over the internet for market share, and bloggers will be among those in the fight. It certainly will further democratize (with a small “d” and not in a partisan sense) the news industry because there’s not the overhead required of raw material, distribution, and warehousing required from a newspaper (or for that matter a radio or television studio.)
Content will still have to be king, though. That’s something I don’t see changing, but I’m hoping that journalism returns to its roots of retelling the events of the day which happened instead of becoming the news itself (as I’m guilty of by citing this poll.) Sometimes you have to work to the dark side to make an argument though, and in this case I went for the greater point by using the polling data at hand.
