Newspapers can't predict their future

This is not a required post, but I just want to share this with the rest of the class.

I picked up this story from The Editors Weblog. The headline says, "Newspaper executives can't predict future of industry." Indeed, it is also conventional wisdom now to think that the Internet is causing the "death of newspapers." But there is more to this ongoing trend. (Also read this related story from New York Times). Excerpt:

After years of endless discussions on the future of the newspaper industry, trying to figure out whether it will bounce back or is doomed, some top newspaper executives finally revealed the honest truth. They simply don’t know. These executives met at the annual media conference in New York – where The New York Times Co. explicitly refuted rumors about a change in their stock structure.

The ‘real news’ was the honesty that newspaper executives seemed to have agreed upon.

The newspaper's death explained

Slate's Jack Shafer tries to explain why newspapers are now pushing the "panic button," as readership numbers are dwindling. He writes:

A good three decades before the newspaper industry began blaming its declining fortunes on the Web, the iPod, and game machines, it knew it was in huge trouble. In the mid-1970s, two of its trade associations (which have since merged)—the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the Newspaper Advertising Bureau—sought to diagnose the causes of tumbling newspaper readership since the mid-1960s and recommend remedies.

But towards the end, he explains that the appetite for news has not really gone down. Generally, it is the behavior of readers that has changed a lot with the introduction of the Web, iPod and game machines, as he puts it. He goes on to quote Preserving the Press, which offers some solution to newspapers.

The solutions proposed by Preserving the Press and Shaw's article read like the standard prescriptions written today: Make an attempt to "reconnect" with readers, who feel alienated from newspapers. Make coverage more local. Hook kids when they're young. Let readers "sound off" about issues on special pages of the paper. Connect with and hire minorities. Expand the weather report. Introduce or expand op-ed pages. Spice up the design and print more color. Run more lifestyle, consumer, and personal-finance articles. Chase potential readers—and advertisers—into the deep suburbs.

Read more of this article here.

WEEK 3: The best of both worlds

The online medium provides the "best of both worlds" of broadcasting and print. With faster computers and Internet connection, it is now possible to deliver text, videos, and audio through an online media. Users can choose what they want. They may even opt to have news pushed to them via mobile phones --which extends the online medium further. The online media is at the "cutting edge" of journalism. While it won't replace journalism as we know it, it changes paradigms, mindsets, and business models. Online medium can deliver news quickly and around the clock. It provides an endless web of information through links and recently, blogs. Newspapers are now putting up video content, complimented with audio, which can be a short news clip or a streaming Internet radio program. Blogs have also provided another way to engage readers .

The biggest weakness of the online medium is accessibility and cost. Not all people have Internet access and computers. But mobile phones are becoming an alternative. Nonetheless, the online medium opens up opportunities for the news "business." It creates additional revenues (through advertising and syndication) for newspapers, television, and radio. With the online medium, they can have a bigger and younger audience born in a multimedia world. Traditional media that refuse to change remain the biggest threat to online media.

A paper titled, "Newspaper websites deliver local consumers" by the Newspaper Association of America, states a general trend in the US, which is now happening in countries like the Philippines:

The number of Web users visiting newspaper Web sites continues to grow—from 40 percent of everyone online in 2002, to 48 percent in 2004 and 51 percent in 2006.