Dan

Calabrese

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December 18, 2008

Newspapers Can Bail Themselves Out With a Modern Business Model

Many years ago, the late visionary writer Michael Crichton wrote an op-ed piece that basically predicted everything that has since happened in the newspaper industry. He talked about how information would be delivered electronically to people’s own personal devices, and how these technological advances would render the printed newspaper obsolete.

One of the newspapers that was actually willing to run the piece was my hometown Detroit News, but it ran a rebuttal alongside from a staff member who excoriated Crichton for having the gall to say such things.

The newspaper industry is in financial trouble, not because reporting and journalism are less valued, but because the business and delivery model of the industry has already become obsolete. People get their news from online sources more than any other. And many of those who still cling to the physical printed newspaper are older people who are doing so out of habit.

Crichton saw this coming before most people did, but a lot of people saw it coming soon enough that the newspaper industry could have started making changes earlier to prepare for the transition of the industry.

At our house, we still get the Sunday Grand Rapids Press. Here you might expect the joke that we need something to put the cat litter in. It’s no joke. That is seriously the only thing we use it for. One Sunday paper can wrap up one heck of a lot of cat poop.

If I really want local news, I read the Press online. So does just about everyone else.

I suppose it’s a shame, because not four years ago, the Press built a massive, modern printing press just west of town. It’s a beautiful building and it makes the print and photo colors in the paper pop better than ever. A few months before that, I had been invited to the unveiling of a similar new printing press by the Kalamazoo Gazette.

Both papers were proud of how much better their product would look – and look better they do. But it doesn’t matter a hill of beans. Most likely, within five years’ time, almost no one will read a printed, physical newspaper.

Today, newspapers are enacting deep newsroom layoffs. They are closing bureaus. They are trying to cover more with less. But they keep running those shiny new printing presses, determined to get a return on the investment they made so recently, as if to spit in the face of the technological headwind and say, “No! People will always want newspapers!”

If the Big Three automakers are dying from the “legacy cost” of retiree health benefits, newspapers are dying from their own legacy costs – the stately buildings, complex printing facilities and multilevel delivery operations set up generations ago to serve the only method available at the time for bringing the written word to their respective communities.

Today, it would probably be cheaper for a newspaper to simply buy every one of its subscribers a web-enabled laptop and then shut down everything else. Every dollar spent printing newspapers is a dollar that could and should have been invested in modern methods of electronic information delivery – and that includes the employment of excellent reporters who fill your online news site with information your readers want and need.

There is talk today that it’s the newspaper industry that really needs a bailout. Two of my North Star Writers Group colleagues, Eric Baerren and Rob Kall, have said as much in recent weeks, with Rob going so far as to call for a federally funded program to employ investigative journalists.

I share their love of the practice of great journalism, but if ever there was an industry that should be able to sustain itself financially, it is the news business. It is less costly than ever, at least with respect to overhead, to report and disseminate news.

What the news business needs is a modern business model. The giant printing presses can be sold or operated for commercial clients. The stately old buildings can be leased to other users. The delivery trucks can be sold to people who can use them more profitably. And all the savings can be invested in resources for actual writing and reporting.

It appears the Detroit News has finally admitted Crichton was right. It announced this week that it is cutting back to only three days’ home delivery. The other days, a scaled-down print version of the paper will be available at newsstands. Otherwise, it’s online only.

There will always be a market for good reporting. Newspapers that shed the burdensome overhead of yesteryear and learn to adapt will do more than just survive.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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