{"id":1033,"date":"2006-11-30T22:23:08","date_gmt":"2006-12-01T06:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/2006\/11\/30\/the-newspaper-industrys-sleighride-to-hell\/"},"modified":"2006-11-30T22:23:08","modified_gmt":"2006-12-01T06:23:08","slug":"the-newspaper-industrys-sleighride-to-hell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/the-newspaper-industrys-sleighride-to-hell\/","title":{"rendered":"The Newspaper Industry’s Sleighride to Hell"},"content":{"rendered":"

You gotta love any article about the incredible shrinking newspaper audience that includes this graf: <\/a><\/p>\n

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If you agree with me that the newspaper business has been on a slow,
\nunstoppable train ride to hell for many decades and that the Web has
\nonly accelerated its descent, then you’ll enjoy another article in
\nyesterday’s Wall Street Journal<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Satan_claus\"<\/a>
\nY’see, over at Slate, they’re pretty much hanging on the rim over the woes over on the dead-tree side of the information distribution biz. Apparently, more than 30 years ago, back in the mid-70s, which was about the time that I was getting interested in the news biz <\/p>\n

Tiresome aside: my earliest job in the industry was delivering free weekly shoppers to the doorsteps of the surly alcoholics in Altoona, Wis.  I got paid about a penny per paper stuck in the rusty screen doors of various houses, shacks and trailers. I was so thrilled with the job that I took the heavy
\ncanvas bag full of papers on my shoulder and dumped most of them down the storm drain. <\/p>\n

Even then, a media critic. <\/p>\n

But back to our storyline. Back in the 70s, I say, the newspapers were starting to realize that All Was Not Well.  At the moment of their greatest triumph – bringing down Tricky Dick and his minions – they looked around to see that the numbers, they were whispering dire things.  Like Alexander the Great, weeping into the Indian Ocean because he had run out of world to conquer… or something. Maybe that \"Newspapers\"<\/a>metaphorical image doesn’t fit. Maybe more like: a carnival barker selling tickets to the hoochie-kootchie dance who realizes that the local rubes aren’t lining up to see sweaty, floppy Marge and Ida anymore, because the local Walgreen’s has started stocking Playboy… <\/p>\n

Better? Or more disturbing? <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, back at the storyline, the papers did then what they are doing now – they hired people to look at the industry and tell them what to do. <\/p>\n

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The solutions proposed by Preserving the Press<\/em> and Shaw’s
\narticle read like the standard prescriptions written today: Make an
\nattempt to "reconnect" with readers, who feel alienated from
\nnewspapers. Make coverage more local. Hook kids when they’re young. Let
\nreaders "sound off" about issues on special pages of the paper. Connect
\nwith and hire minorities. Expand the weather report. Introduce or
\nexpand op-ed pages. Spice up the design and print more color. Run more
\nlifestyle, consumer, and personal-finance articles. Chase potential
\nreaders\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand advertisers\u00e2\u20ac\u201dinto the deep suburbs. <\/span><\/p>\n

Is there a metropolitan newspaper that hasn’t taken all of this medicine? Is there
\none that isn’t taking maintenance doses of these meds today? And yet
\nnewspaper circulation continues to dribble down.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ah, plus ca change, eh? And these days, it’s not the ephemeral nature of the population, the sprawl from urban to suburban to exurban that’s doing it.  It’s them damn internets, ain’t it! <\/p>\n

The solutions are as varied as the writers.  But like a bad horror movie, the authorities know that there’s a (circulation) killer on the loose, and Something Has To Be Done! <\/p>\n

Over at Andy Kessler’s deep thinking and scribbled napkin brain-a-torium,<\/a> he’s devoting even more candlepower to illuminating the "Whither the media" question. He’s got some interesting what-ifs about what’s going to take YouTube (and Cingular, Sprint et al. as well, incidentally) out: <\/p>\n

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