The Internet, Wall Street and the pundit at the corner coffee shop are all certain of one thing. Newspapers are doomed. Sadly advertisers agree. But did you consider where the money is fleeing to?
Yes, the money is going to online properties, but how many of those properties, and Google is the top example, actually offer their own content? Every single one of the web 2.0 juggernaut portals, NetVibes, PageFlakes, Digg, Reddit, you name it, all offer one thing: links to original content.
Aggregating RSS feeds is so fun and and so easy that it leaves you a whole lot of time to play with pretty designs, AJAX and Flash. But did anyone in his/her right mind actually smelled the roses? Where are the RSS feeds coming from?
1. Blogs (eh, sure of great content here; original, yes, properly investigated story, most likely not): Sadly blogs do not have ombudspeople or editorial panels. It’s good for some, but most are, were and will stay garbage (mine included).
2. News agencies: The Reuters, AP, god forbid AFP and others. I doubt there is an AP reporter on your local town educational beat. Or anyone reporting issues in your town hall. News agencies were in a similar game before the Internet; newspapers actually are aggregators of their stories, so websites are expected to pay to play. The web 2.0 breed does not really feel like it, so they stick by their RSSes. Google was forced to pay and gave up (of course). Yahoo! is the only portal that does pay and therefore you see the stories inside its pages. God knows when they’re going to quit and join the inferior linking masses. (If Google does it Yahoo! should too)
3. Media (TV, Magazines, and oh oh oh, Newspapers?!!!): This is where people are still and hopefully for a while getting paid to do work. They dig up stories, tell you about the area where you live (even when the blog from New Zealand is often way to interesting) and actually do that thing called creating content.
Newspapers are suffering from the following problems:
- People are tired of paying to get sheets of paper with slightly old news
- The content of the paper sheets, in too many cases, is written for 3rd graders despite the paper’s high aspiration (Boston Globe anyone?) and that is all too unappealing.
- Readership is therefore down, and hence advertisers are not paying for ad placement.
But what if even your sucky local publication was not there? Who will report for you – the aspiring blogger/knitter/trophy wife down the road? AFP with their vehemently off balanced anti-Western zeal?
Maybe the problem is in what the papers do have, what the papers are aiming for. I am a passionate supporter of the Wall Street Journal because it does not aim low. It has the old news but provides insight to the stories that you will not get elsewhere. It is differentiated. Most amazingly, reading its online edition is STILL not as fun or illuminating as the paper one. You stumble across interesting stories less. Whatever makes the headline list is whatever you will see.
So that was solution 1: make content worth readers while.
Solution 2:
Play the online game: if people do not buy the paper form enough, print less, increase its price and put more emphasis on your online properties. Papers WILL get the traffic because the RSS aggregators are doing their bidding, they just need to expose their content properly and the links will flow into their site. If they are smart, they can also retain the visitor traffic. The key here is – get out there and get the advertisers to pay. In the worst case, admit paper defeat; it would definitely hurt, but stop the bleeding.
Papers have the best assets out there – content. Columnists, reporters, photographers who know their jobs, know their beats, and hopefully can write for adults. Now wouldn’t it be nice if they started reevaluating their place in the world and not cry or call it quits? Maybe then Wall Street would sit up and listen.
Update – April 5, 2007
Apparently the Wharton Business School, no slouch in the reputation department, agrees with my assessment that not all is lost.
