Exactly. I don’t have a real attachment to newspapers as a physical thing; I like getting my news from the Internet. But without newspapers where are the stories going to come from? Serious journalism will always need professional journalists and without newspapers who will employ them? Yes, I know newspaper quality has been going down for a while, but that’s directly related to how newspapers have been slashing their news staff.
Another thing to realize when looking at the chart is that it’s adjusted for “inflation”, but not “population”. This first bit won’t “disagree” with the chart, but bear with me:
In 1950, the U.S. population was 152,271,417.
In 1980, the U.S. population was 227,224,681.
(A 33% population increase occurred from 1950 to 1980.)
During that same period, sales increased from $20,000M to about $40,000M (a 50% increase). So, the industry was doing well because the population percentage increased less sales increased. More of the population decided to buy newspapers.
In 2000, the U.S. population was 282,171,957
(A 20% population increase occurred from 1980 to 2000.)
In 2000, newspapers peaked, but so did our economy. It was right before 9/11. They reached sales of $65,000M, which was about a 38% sales increase from 1980. Even though the increase is lower, the time period is shorter, and the population growth is smaller (only 20%), so they still were doing really well - right up until 2000. That graph isn’t lying.
Newpapers are one of those things people see as an “extra” - an added cost. They can watch watch the news for free on TV (they could in 1950 and 1980) or now, get it off the internet. Our most recent economic troubles didn’t start in 2007 or 2009, they first flared up in 2001. You can see people’s feelings about that in these Gallup polls (which I only ever refer to for long tracking). I’m pointing this out because of the way people treat the purchase of a newspaper.
Newspapers were already online in the 1990s. It wasn’t until our economy changed that we saw this massive drop off of interest in paper delivery. Magazines have suffered the same problems, and this is a problem worldwide, but the world economy is currently in a slump. I still say that I think this wash out will leave only a few players in the print game, but I wanted to post what I think about the outside economic factors contributing to problems in all areas of the press industry.
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That’s all great, but need does not mean is going to be done. Without some model for paying for people to do digging and then distributing the information to a public not really looking for it, it just isn’t economically viable. We will have to get used to living in a world with more corruption and so forth.
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And how much did Boing Boing bitch and moan when the New York Times went behind a paywall?
Advertising isn’t the only model for funding journalism. Many countries fund it directly. The US won’t do that of course because it would be pinko-commie-socialism. You can also have grants provided by corporations that want to improve their image or get a tax deduction. Or you can fund individual journalists through something like Patreon or Beacon Reader.
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In other news, buggy manufactures are really annoyed with these new-fangled horseless carriages.
Any form of technology, once obsolete, should figure out a way to adapt, or fade away gracefully.
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The Daily Mail has supplanted most of my need for the New York Times. And it’s completely changed my worldview!
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Too true. PRNewswire occupies a lot of the journalism niche, now.
Off Topic.
This is an article about newspapers. I don’t see the relevance of this.
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I don’t know if they will totally disappear, but perhaps consolidate? Newspapers and physical media can be handy. Like others pointed out, you don’t need to know news as it happens, indeed usually you get more info as more details are released later. Plus there is the tactile experience, like books vs tablets/ereaders. I foresee something like USA Today, only with the front section being custom printed for your city/area.
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No, you don’t have to know what happened RIGHT THIS INSTANT. As for myself, I like being able to think, “Hmm, I wonder what’s going on right now?” and find out. I don’t have to check every minute. If it’s something boring, I never check again. If it’s something more interesting, I’ll check once a day. If it’s something REALLY interesting, I’ll check more often.
The point being that (a) I find things out on my own schedule, and (b) I find the things I’m interested in, not some editorial board, and © I go as in-depth as I want. (*)
You can keep your daily subscription to a curated information source.
(*) And that need is what will drive journalism. I’d pay for what I want to know, in-depth. Not for what I don’t. And maybe then we’ll stand a chance of news stories actually being followed up, to their conclusion.
If you can make a Millwall brick out of it, it’s a newspaper, no? Try that with your ‘new media’ blogosphere, kids!
iPad boxes.
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I also think there’s quite a lot to be said for a physical archive.
There was a coke fire at the refinery in San Pedro a few years ago. It happened in the middle of the night. I was up, and wandered the street with other people trying to find out where the “burning rubber” smell was coming from - and why so many emergency vehicles were rolling out. Ended up having to leave my place for three days due to poor air quality.
Here’s the thing: That night, before I left, I checked our local paper online for any news about what was going on - that’s how I found out about the fire. A small article noted the fire, noted how bad it was, and that it was a fire on the coke line. I bookmarked that page. When I later returned home: dead link, and no other mentions of the fire.
It wasn’t written about anywhere. Coke dust (a carcinogen that the refinery isn’t successfully controlling) is already a noted problem for the refinery. The fact that the fire didn’t make the news meant that local doctors didn’t know about the increase they’d have in patients, and why they’d be there. I happened to take a friend to an eye appointment and saw a waiting room full of people having trouble breathing. I reported the fire to one of the doctors on site. Lack of reporting was wholly irresponsible.
Here’s the most irritating part: When another fire later happened at the same refinery, it made the news - because it wasn’t at the plant itself. It was an outbuilding and they could safely report on it. http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/16/local/la-me-refinery-fire-20120117
We need a permanent record.
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Thank you for your thoroughness!
I wish I could have done more. The place I reported to was a Kaiser facility, and they seemed to take me seriously because they’d noticed an overnight uptick in breathing problems. They told me that they’d notify the local hospital networks, and medical pros don’t tend to mess around when it means they need to be better staffed.
Newspaper companies refused to see the drastic changes needed in the mid 1990s to take control of internet advertising/classifieds. Their business models, guidance, and shareholders just could not see the way. Too bad really because online news quality is shotgun all over the place, lacks credentials, and feels like an afterthought. Newsprint records history, concentrates and preserves it, errors and all; made by people who’ve spent their professional careers doing it; for any and all downsides, it was consistent and everyone read the same thing (that may remain it’s best quality).
There is great power in the daily. Too bad it’ll be gone before it’s missed.
Reading in the confined space of a mobile, even on a large screen, is fundamentally different than looking at ink on paper–for readers and editors/writers. It’s a psycho-physiological thing, for comprehension at least. As for writing, words aren’t just words, they are shaped; it’s not a stretch to agree that writing outcomes for online publishing compared to those with print destination will be different. Factors include differing timelines, workflow, editorial structure, training, support, deadlines, and specific needs of the medium; for the reader: scarcity, expectation, trust, or disagreement, continuity, and community, among others.
I’ve been designing and publishing newsprint since 1989. I won’t buy our local paper: it’s owned nationally, the ad copy is done offshore, the layout is done in a different city, the classifieds are pointless, the content is syndicated. It’s a zombie, not knowing that it’s dead, lurching around; a slow and easy target for the new, post-civilization creed to blow it away.
It’s an effort for me to edit together my news from dozens of online sources, daily…several times daily, but I do it; you can’t automate it and trust the results. It’s tiring, sometimes overwhelming. But it’s what I’ve got; scavenging scraps via RSS feed-hose and a few goto sites. I don’t expect the news ecosystem to settle down soon. Not in the next ten years. It could take decades. Should be interesting.
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Personally I think there is a tremendous vacuum for a trustworthy investigative news source. I would make it a paper product so that it would be totally disassociated from the Babblenet. And do it consistently day in and day out without an agenda other than bringing the cold hard truth. I am sure I am not the only one who feels this way. I am also saying that it does not need to be the thickness of the New York Times either. How much is reliable truthfull investigative/intelligent news worth these days. I don’t think you can put a price on it. But without it the democracy thing is gonna have a hard time. Who’s with me?
It’s not as popular as some of the others, but my weekly newspaper has bucked the trend and has its highest readership for 18 years. They have a new weekly section on Hamburg too, which makes it more relevant to me. Of course they may just be taking readers from the other major publications, so the general trend is the same.
Uh, dude! Whaddya mean, ‘in a few years?’
