Forum Moderators: goodroi
While the New York Times was given an early death sentence this week by The Atlantic, Google CEO Eric Schmidt was asked by Fortune magazine what Google should do to save the ailing newspaper industry. He reiterated his previous “moral imperative” sentiment to do something, but failed to come up with any concrete solutions.
[blog.wired.com...]
Surely, there's a new business angle that can help newspapers exist...
Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together. An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations.
-Joseph Pulitzer
Personally, I don't think there's any future for printed newspapers; they survived radio and TV, but they are clearly having a poor time with the Internet - not only losing sales, but increasingly losing advertising too.
The tragedy is, many newspapers saw this coming ten years ago, and their defense was probably the worst possible.
Instead of making themselves monopoly suppliers of hard, quality news (which might have bought a few years), they cut down on genuine journalism, and invested all their hopes and much of their cash on 'columns' - every newspaper is laden with idiots spouting half-baked opinions, while most newspapers have totally abandoned real journalism on cost grounds. as well as sacking all the checkers and proofreaders.
Then along came the blog; laden with idiots spouting half-baked opinions - but for free.
I used to buy a quality paper 7/7, and often took a second - now, I very rarely buy one. I often spend 15 minutes on a 'freesheet' (mostly celeb gossip plus a bit of sport). the rest I get on the web, occasionally TV news.
Google would be frankly insane in business terms - to do anything other than say 'there, there' - which is exactly what they are doing.
None of this is necessarily bad news for news - just that TV seems to adapting to the web better than the print media. At least in the UK, where the BBC web site dwarfs all the 'serious' newspapers' sites. And I suspect CNN are doing similarly well.
I think we're on a bad trend if real journalism is no longer viable, and the public mind is informed only by shills and numbed by TV dope. It must be possible to support good journalism, as it plainly is valuable. God help us if it falls to the wayside and is replaced by half-baked blogs.
(a) newspapers maintain quality journalism and
(b) nothing except newspapers may contain quality?
In my experience, neither assumption is valid. You take quality wherever you are lucky enough to find it (if at all); and you are unlikely to find quality consistently in newspapers.
Please note I'm writing in the UK; it may just be that other countries still have genuinely quality newspapers. Lucky them!
I think newspapers are organized and funded to investigate, and this is the basic need of quality journalism lacking elsewhere. I don't know about the quality of newspapers in the UK, but in the US, pretty much much of the media except public broadcasting is abandoning its core purpose of informing the public, and instead, just trying entertain.
IMO.
And there's no sign that they have insight into their deterioration, either. If I were a major advertiser - let alone a potential investor - I'd invest in the web.
If newspapers could ditch their print editions and find a way to monetize their online content better than they're doing now, they might be able to survive without selling their baseball teams and real estate. James Moore has a provocative column at Huffingtonpost.com that suggests doing just that:
"Newspapers: Shut 'em Down" [huffingtonpost.com]
As for Google's potential role in saving newspapers, Google News is a great source of traffic for newspaper Web sites. The challenge is for newspapers to figure out how to earn money with that traffic through display and text advertising to their local audiences instead of depending on generic weight-loss ads and sponsored links for mesothelioma attorneys.
What kind of quality, low quality, mediocre quality, high quality, or what?
That's like saying "quality content".
All news and content has some level of quality, it's the level of the quality that makes the difference.
As for Google's potential role in saving newspapers, Google News is a great source of traffic for newspaper Web sites. The challenge is for newspapers to figure out how to earn money with that traffic through display and text advertising to their local audiences instead of depending on generic weight-loss ads and sponsored links for mesothelioma attorneys.
That's exactly what I was imagining in the post about the Seattle Post Intelligencer [webmasterworld.com] - with a large enough advertising service and the ability to look up a reader's market area, which G does already an article might display local ads worldwide. Not the locality of the publication, the locality of the reader. I think this sort of ad scheme could make a winning recipe, and such an ad service would tend to reward higher quality reporting, which would be a plus for everyone.
Re: quality - I think for news, quality is in its originality and importance, thoroughness of research and fact-checking (close to true) and how well it's written-- with clarity and concision topping it.
There's no inherent reason why a "newspaper" (meaning news printed on ground-up trees) is better for readers or society as a whole than news displayed on a computer screen.
I'm thinking of a newspaper in terms of an organization and an important function, and wondering if there's a way for the function to surive-- and if so, how. It seems like the newspaper function is dying off, going out of business, no longer viable, slowly replaced with shallow chitchat, half-baked opinion, puff and vulgar agenda-pushing reporting across giant syndicates.
The reporting could be distributed by paper, digitally or by birds as far as I'm concerned, though online would seem the most practical.
I still see the chance for newspapers to become essential online properties if they manage to focus on their strengths (local content, brand awareness, and better-than-average content quality) and add in ingredients of the Internet (community management, collaboration). But most editors and publishers will have a hard time getting used to the new workstyle the new function requires. Thus, many newspapers will just (continue to) fail.
I agree that mediocrity will be the direct consequence, but there will be online properties that will learn and make the gap disappear.
I'm thinking of a newspaper in terms of an organization and an important function, and wondering if there's a way for the function to surive
I think there is, but it may require the death of existing newspaper companies that are tied to the old model of print publishing, distribution by truck and newspaper carrier, and the deadweight of soft features, syndicated columns, comic strips, etc. that exist mainly to give subscribers the feeling that they're getting good value for their subscription fees. It will also require the support of local advertisers (such as major retailers) who feel that display ads, rich media ads, etc. on a local news site are at least as valuable and cost-effective as the color ad supplements that arrive via people's mailboxes or doormats.
As for Google's role (which needs mentioning if only because this is the GOOG forum), Google News will become more important than ever if the news organizations that we once called newspapers are to attract readers over the long haul. One thing that might help would be greater localization of Google News results. That would be good not only for local news organizations, but also for readers who are looking for local news and a local perspective.
In the UK, newspapers are doing that too; even the so-called 'qualities' feature TV reality show events on their front pages, and regurgitate press releases alongside ignorant 'analysis' in place of investigative journalism. Most are blindly 'pro-government' or equally blindly 'anti-government' - they make Fox TV look positively open minded![
[emphasis mine]
I mean sure, the Daily Hate makes Fox look communist, and the red-tops can easily be split pro/anti gov, with a large group falling into a third category called "non political (just reactionary populist)"
That said, The Indy doesn't do a bad job. Although Left-leaning, they are reasonably fair to Cameron, and reasonably critical of Brown.
But really, I don't care about Newspapers. I just want what Newspapers used to do. Investigative Journalism (not the NOTW sort), in depth analysis. Stuff that didn't translate to TV/Radio. Stuff that translates perfectly to the web.
The thing is, Papers were as much about influence for their proprietors as they were about making money. Thats why circulation is the yardstick of preference. Opinions were built in- through editorials, not the celebrity columns you see now.
Obviously, to get proper journalism and analysis worth the screen its displayed on you need an income stream. Too many people want the free option, such that those who want to pay for quality do not number enough to support multiple competing entities. As such, I think "quality" journalism will go the way of "quality" book publishing. That is, the quality will be loss-making, supported on the back of mass produced, populist product. Celebrity tattle and gosip.
Of course it will still be hard to monetise the rubbish- although I'm thinking of co-branding. Want to look like Brad Pitt? Buy Ultra-Rugged Skincare lotion, from Pampered Man. Sponsored link right by the photo. And so on
But blindly going down a set path - even if that path is not extreme - is every bit as bad as being extreme with occasional bouts of commonsense.
In journalism, a fixed mind is much more dangerous than an extreme one. I loathe the Fox approach; but I can accept and make a 'mental allowance' for the Fox POV, while appreciating that many of Murdoch's disciples are highly astute, able and intelligent people. And in those areas where politics has no immediate consequence (some sport, some crime etc.,), their journalists are among the few who actually challenge people, at least occasionally!
Establish non-profit/public service online "papers" on the public broadcasting model, from grants and donations
I think we have something like that here in Minneapolis, MN. Started by a number of former execs and journos from the StarTribune, if I recall right. Not sure of the details. Called MinnPost, (unsure if that ref is ok here)
[edited by: coopster at 3:51 pm (utc) on Jan. 15, 2009]
[edit reason] fixed quote [/edit]
News will out; enquiring minds will find a pulpit, and subsidized news channels end up serving no-one except their shareholders.
I'm by no means a promoter of capitalism, but I believe totally in competitive news; let the great unwashed public select their news sources, and support advertising as they see fit. Or not.
If people want to pay micropayments, fine by me (their cash), but I do not believe for a second that they can survive when competing with free online media.
Rather than pleed and beg for Google to help out local media (and isn't it Google because they are rich, rather than Google because its appropriate?), wouldn't it be better to arrange affiliate tie ins with Craigslist, ebay, and others with (already) localized services?
Having said that, I am sure that Adwords will increasingly be geotargetted over the next few months; Not for handout purposes, but because it will allow Google to buy in the the lucrative local classifieds business.
As it happens, I don't believe there's either a shortage of local media, or a financial crisis - go to Google news and enter a few local search terms; you'll rarely come up with no sources. And even a standard Google search will find many.
I suspect your ideas are a solution looking for a problem!
Micropayments will be the death of the web; and, either way, I don't see any imperative on the 'big three' to do anything at all.
More on that subject here: Micropayments: A rainbow for journalism...or a Hail Mary? [webmasterworld.com]
