A few weeks ago the Seattle Post-Intelligencer dropped regular service and went online. Last week the Ann Arbor News–the newspaper that gave me my first paid journalism gig–gave notice that it was following suit. Today both Detroit newspapers cut their home delivery service to three days and ramp up their online presence.
I’ve talked about this before. What we’re seeing is a shift that will have significant long term consequences. And some of them may be dire. I think that critiques about suck-ass content are on the money. But what is the alternative?
Here’s one. With the slow death of the only institutions that up to now have the capacity (if not the will) to do real investigative journalism, what will replace it? Huffington’s work will barely fill the need of Baltimore much less the nation, but it’s at least possible that other non-profits or people with loot will subsidize similar endeavors.
But, here’s the one I’m interested in. If you could publish your own full color magazine, what would it be about?
Better yet, if you could take out the [substitute your daily newspaper here], what type of content would you use to do it with? Could you get advertisers to subsidize it?
I think the problem re: large, full-service, commercial daily newspapers is a lack of vision. Publishers of the DFP, Baltimore Sun, LA Times, etc., have lost sight of the real value they offer to would-be subscribers. It's not content, per se.
It doesn't help that newspapers exist in an ever-growing, hyper-competitive market for information. In a commercial landscape that includes non-fiction literature, magazines, film/video, the Internet, broadcast, cable, and satellite TV and radio, plus mobile devices, a lot of 'traditional' investigative journalism will end up migrating to one or more of these media. In fact, I think this migration is already in progress because of technology's effect on barriers to market.
This is not to say one of the Tribune's dailies wouldn't benefit from diversifying its staff and coverage. However, I believe such diversification would only yield a nominal return and ultimately lead right back to the 'content is king' mindset that is part of the current industry's handicap.
If I were to publish a magazine (or a daily newspaper), it would be structured in a way that reflected local/regional influences — ownership, coverage, marketing, and circulation — around a central theme.
I don't know how much poor content has to do with the decline of the paper, but I hate to see yet another blow hit the City of Detroit.
Detroit newspapers drops home delivery (mostly) http://t.co/AVCYouBZ