The news hasn't been pretty about newspapers lately, that's for sure.
But the doom and gloom reached a new low last week, when the Tribune Company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Much of industry media talk since that filing has centered around the rise of the Internet as a primary information source, a rise that has eroded the market share for newspapers.
That analysis, though, hasn't been completely accurate. Plenty of newspapers are seeing their audiences actually grow or at least hold steady these days. You can count The Citizen and its family of media products among them.
The problem for the industry is that more of the audience is getting the content for free from newspaper Web sites, or from sites that are grabbing newspaper Web site content.
What the future holds is, of course, the subject of great debate, but I just came across a common-sense analysis from the New Yorker's James Surowiecki, that magazine's financial reporter.
Surowiecki certainly didn't back off from observations that the industry is struggling like it never has before, but he said the peculiar aspect of this struggle is that relevance of newspaper content has remained extremely high.
“The blogosphere, much of which piggybacks on traditional journalism's content, has magnified the reach of newspapers,” he wrote.
The problem, though, is that while more people are talking about what's in the newspaper, fewer are paying for it. And as fewer pay for it, advertising declines.
Ultimately, Surowiecki argues, the content that people are gobbling up for free will start to disappear.
“For a while now, readers have had the best of both worlds: all the benefits of the old, high-profit regime - intensive reporting, experienced editors, and so on - and the low costs of the new one. But that situation can't last. Soon enough, we're going to start getting what we pay for, and we may find out just how little that is.”
That's where I differ, though, from Surowiecki. My sense is that the demand for news and information will never go away, and as long as that demand is there, someone will figure out a way to provide it in a way that makes money. As the places with the most resources currently invested in providing that news and information - at least at the community level - newspaper companies are still positioned to take advantage of what's happening.
I can tell you our newspaper and our parent company are working hard to evolve ourselves into the kind of journalism company that will emerge stronger than ever once all of these changes shake themselves out.
Executive editor Jeremy Boyer's columns appear Tuesdays in The Citizen and he can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 231 or jeremy.boyer@lee.net
That analysis, though, hasn't been completely accurate. Plenty of newspapers are seeing their audiences actually grow or at least hold steady these days. You can count The Citizen and its family of media products among them.
The problem for the industry is that more of the audience is getting the content for free from newspaper Web sites, or from sites that are grabbing newspaper Web site content.
What the future holds is, of course, the subject of great debate, but I just came across a common-sense analysis from the New Yorker's James Surowiecki, that magazine's financial reporter.
Surowiecki certainly didn't back off from observations that the industry is struggling like it never has before, but he said the peculiar aspect of this struggle is that relevance of newspaper content has remained extremely high.
“The blogosphere, much of which piggybacks on traditional journalism's content, has magnified the reach of newspapers,” he wrote.
The problem, though, is that while more people are talking about what's in the newspaper, fewer are paying for it. And as fewer pay for it, advertising declines.
Ultimately, Surowiecki argues, the content that people are gobbling up for free will start to disappear.
“For a while now, readers have had the best of both worlds: all the benefits of the old, high-profit regime - intensive reporting, experienced editors, and so on - and the low costs of the new one. But that situation can't last. Soon enough, we're going to start getting what we pay for, and we may find out just how little that is.”
That's where I differ, though, from Surowiecki. My sense is that the demand for news and information will never go away, and as long as that demand is there, someone will figure out a way to provide it in a way that makes money. As the places with the most resources currently invested in providing that news and information - at least at the community level - newspaper companies are still positioned to take advantage of what's happening.
I can tell you our newspaper and our parent company are working hard to evolve ourselves into the kind of journalism company that will emerge stronger than ever once all of these changes shake themselves out.
Executive editor Jeremy Boyer's columns appear Tuesdays in The Citizen and he can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 231 or jeremy.boyer@lee.net
