The Slow & Painful Death of Newspapers

It's kind of sad...My favorite newspaper (The Rocky Mountain News) folded over a year ago, after 150 years.

A couple years ago the two newspapers in Salt Lake City, The Deseret News and the SLC Tribune, downsized almost half of the staff!

Three and a half years ago, a leading newpaper - The Chicago Tribune - filed for bankruptcy protection. They are still playing that out in court!

Judge plans written opinion in Tribune Co. bankruptcy - chicagotribune.com

Have newspapers become like buggy-whips?

The only paper I ever read is the Park City Record, and I read the free version online. Even though they do have a fair amount of advertising on their website, I wonder how long they can exist.

I can't remeber the last time I read a Cincinnati newspaper - maybe 15 or more years!

:-Don

I'm glad it's the demise of newspapers they seek to control the flow of information

Alternative media and freelance journalism has really taken off since the internet age

Spreading the word just would not be possible, in the same way a forum like this with so many knowledgable and skilled IM'ers all meeting up and sharing ideas

The internet is great and we should defend the internet and not newspapers

Just my opinion

People, there is huge opportunity in this news!!

What is the number one cost of newspaper companies? Content creation and acquisition.

Imagine if you were a real article marketer -- one who understands that the value in article marketing is in the storytelling and access to a captive audience....

And imagine if you could produce content that you could give to the print newspaper companies, in exchange for a free advertisement for your business...

I expect most people will under appreciate what I just said because they cannot see how this will help them in Google, but there are some sharp cats out there who will get exactly what I am suggesting here and put it to work in their business right away.

There will always be a market for newspapers... as long as people have puppies and bird cages.

I think it's about adaptability. Some companies absolutely refuse to get with the times. When I was a kid Sears was the number one retail store in the country. What happened? They continued to run with a business model that they didn't adapt to the times. Same thing with newspapers.

As a little aside, I've always said someone should focus on positive news and dump all the sensational crap masquerading as news. I know there have been some feeble attempts at doing it. I really like this publication cause they get it:

www.sunnyskyz.com

Strangely enough, Warren Buffet, one of the best investors of all time is buying up newspaper outlets right and left.

I will be honest, I don't fully understand his logic and maybe he has just lost touch, but it is very interesting. He sure doesn't have a history of making too many bad investments.

Stuff like that kinda makes you wonder if some really smart business people do indeed see things us normal business guys just can't see. Only time will tell I guess.

I see some newspapers are trying to charge for accessing a full article online which I feel is more of the heading in the wrong direction. This might fly in smaller markets (read: rural areas) but in larger markets, there's entirely too much competition for that business model to succeed.

Wouldn't they be more profitable from advertisers and/or running classifieds?

I like the ecological benefits of not using paper to deliver news and ads. Saves trees, eliminates warehousing and freight expenses and its attendant power and fuel costs, and eliminates a huge waste disposal problem.

Buffet has said something along the lines of, "I'm fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful."

No doubt he has a plan. Not exactly sure what it is.

That said, it's the hyper-local papers that may be able to make it (as well as the few very large papers). The hyper-locals may be able to get by on very local news: the score of the football game, the story with the construction on Main Street, and (this is the BIG one) ... people's NAMES.

There's another thread going on here tonight about someone opening an email because it said, "Your (sic) In This Video Ken." ... It's the vanity play. I remember hearing about a local (physical, offline) paper that was still killing it in some small town in Tennessee or North Carolina or somewhere like that. They actually printed MORE copies every day than the town's population.

The reason for their success? ... It was chock full of local names every day. People would naturally buy it to see if they were in it or to read about people they knew.

That said, people could still get the score of the local football game on Facebook or Twitter (without the "professional" write up, of course). And they could get what's happening with the reconstruction on Main Street from the local gov't website ... probably without any mention of the kickbacks, of course .

So who knows, the local angle may go away too (for a while). Then some marketer will step in an fill that hole with a local-based site. (As many already have.) Someone else will see the money they're pulling in and decide to do the same. Suddenly the first guy sees he's losing business to the second guy and decides he needs to step up his game -- get better coverage/more professional coverage, etc. ... And soon enough, boom, another local paper is born (though they may call it something else by then, of course).

Newspapers, especially locals provide a much-needed service. Their platform (digital to print) will have to change, but the demand for the service they provide will remain strong.

Bridging the chasm from print to digital is going to be lethally awkward for many papers. To do so management is going to have to think totally out of the box in the way they approach their advertising revenue.

In reality, they are sitting on top of a gold mind and don't know it because of their old world marketing paradigms.

Pay walls aren't the solution --- if ever there was a flawed concept its pay walls.

I wrote a branded business and personal development weekly print edition column for over three years and even though I found it somewhat limiting, I plan to start it back up this fall.

By limiting, I am referring to editors that would rather not publish anything that could be an alternative and therefore a threat, perceived of otherwise, to print advertising. For instance, many editors will not run a piece about the merits of banner ads or direct mail, or anything else they may feel threatening. I guess I can't blame them but try as they may; they are not going to be able to put the genie back in the bottle.

With everything taking a turn towards digital it's no wonder more and more newspapers are folding. I remember the first time I ever read a newspaper...ok well maybe just the sunday comics but I was young so who can blame me right? I still occasionally pick up the paper because nothing compares to reading news from a newspaper.

With the development of online newspaper, the printed newspapers are falling dramatically. I can see it is the fact in every country. In my country, I found that not only they decrease in number, but also in quality of content, comparing to online news. Actually, reporters this generation (in my country) are messing up the media with shocking (but unreal) news. And many printed newspaper are twisted in that trend. Somehow I miss the old days and the eager of waiting a new release of my favorite papers.

If they just took all the resources they have such as a huge amount of content writes and wrote fresh content all day long, they'd make more on ad clicks then they would selling news papers!

"The crux of the bisquit is the apostrophe." - Frank Zappa

Hello Andrei Rotariu,

I wouldn't say the newspaper as we know it will disappear. The delivery method is just changing, tt's becoming digital. Newspaper companies such as the New York Post, Washington Post etc. are going digital now. Not long ago the New York post was struggling in the stock market due to the fact that they were reaching less and less people. The guy Slim bought most of those stocks arguing that the New York post wasn't a "newspaper" to him, but rather a "news factory" so all these companies have to
deliver in effective ways their content nowadays.

It's like a lot of people in advertisement. Where would yo invest your money in ads? In the newspaper? or in mobile ads? Most people is always using their mobile phones to find content on anything nowadays.

Cheers,

LOL

Great observation.

This isn't just about media. This is about a lot more than that.

The simple fact is that most things in our life are heading online. It takes less people to run the online world than the offline world we have been living in for so many years.

This means job cuts are going to become a LOT more frequent across a whole range of industries. Many jobs are becoming redundant in this new online dominated world. We have only just seen the beginning.

Just be glad you are a part of the online world already because you have a big jump start on all these people who are going to be forced to look for ways to make money on the Internet (from home) over the next few years.

People who sell make money online products are the ones that will really prosper over the next few years.

I read one of the daily Toronto papers every day and the local free rural paper which comes out weekly. I like my newspapers. I do read papers online and I think both methods have their place and their followers too. But I can see newspaper readers going by the wayside over time, no doubt there's been a drop already now that we can read full versions online for a fraction of the price of buying the paper. I dont think they'll disappear entirely for a long time to come.