Nightmare for Newspapers

Left to their own devices, the current owners of American newspapers are indeed likely to consummate the suicide pact they have entered into with their investors. That should scare the hell out of Americans who recognize that Jefferson was right when he said that good journalism is essential to democracy. It should also get citizens asking the right questions: If newspapers really are fading away, what comes next?

As a journalism school graduate and the husband of a professor at UNC Chapel Hill's J-school, I have a soft spot in my heart for newspapers. So when I came across the above paragraph in The Nation magazine, it really got my attention - especially since it referenced Phil Meyer, a friend and another professor in the J-school who wrote The Vanishing Newspapers.

Newspapers may be the dinosaurs of America's new-media age, hulking behemoths that cost too much to prepare and distribute and that cannot seem to attract young--or even middle-aged--readers in the numbers needed to survive. They may well have entered the death spiral that Philip Meyer, in his recent book The Vanishing Newspaper, predicts will conclude one day in 2043 as the last reader throws aside the final copy of a newspaper.

All of this, of course, creates a real conundrum. Newspapers have always had obscene profit margins, and as the corporate owners seek to sustain those margins, they've resorted to cost-cutting with a vengeance. That's why the Charlotte Observer and the N&O increasing swap stories written by over-extended reporters who don't have the time or inclination to ask that next hard question. The two papers even share Babs Barrett, their Washington correspondent.

I sympathize with their plight, but I don't see them making the smart investment decisions that could secure a sustainable future. The N&O, for example, has missed the boat on blogging. Their reporters barely participate (partly because they don't have time) and unless you're an ACC sports nut, there's not much current or interesting in their entire blog set-up.

What are newspapers doing instead? Focusing on short-term profits instead of long-term indispensability.

At the same time, newspaper owners have poured resources into lobbying for federal policy shifts that would allow them to merge with competitors and create one-newsroom towns. The Newspaper Association of America and industry lobbyists have been pushing for years for the elimination of the Federal Communications Commission's newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership ban, which prohibits ownership by a single firm of a newspaper and television and radio stations in the same market. Newspaper owners argue that with the ban lifted, they could cut costs by having the same journalists produce online and print reports and appear on company-owned radio and TV news programs. In the few cities where the cross-ownership model has been tried, however, there is no evidence to suggest that it produces better journalism or a more informed public. Instead it makes the few remaining reporters busier, leaving them with less time for what Washington Post veteran and Pulitzer Prize-winner David Maraniss says is the most important work of journalism: thinking.

Go read the whole article. It's long, but worth the time.