Posted by: McQ on Thursday, May 25, 2006 In my real job I work with the newspaper industry, but mostly on the production side. Regardless, I can tell you that newspaper people are worried. Circulation is dropping. Profit margins are erroding. Weaker papers are going under or being absorbed. All of them are wondering if they're going to be around much longer. Obviously as bloggers and consumers of news, we'd all be the poorer if the worst case were to happen. As it happens, I'm a member, through my company, of the Georgia Press Association and get their association publication. In their most recent issue an article written by Doug Fisher caught my attention. In it he cites some tough remedies recommended for the industry by Lauren Rich Fine. She makes good sense. She feels it is a mistake to attempt to compete with TV and radio and the immediacy they bring to news coverage. So the key to success, it appears, is to adjust the focus of newspapers. On the news side she suggests the following: —"Quit being defensive and avoiding risk." As an example, papers have become afraid of bias at the same time people are asking them to take a stand. She says taking a stand doesn't mean one has to necessarily be biased. "It means using the logic and other tests necessary to evaluate truthfulness and authenticity and taking those into account when writing a story." That would be a welcome change. —"The industry has gone astray by putting things on the front page that they [readers] don't want from you. They don't want the breaking news they've already seen on TV or read it on the Internet ... They want context and analysis." Amen to that. —-"Stop trying to remake papers to be youth friendly. News flash, the never did read the newspaper". Agreed. She then talks about circulation, ads and personnel issues. But she finishes with "don't charge on the web unless you want to lose readers." Hello, NY Times? She says, "figure out how to make the Googles and the Yahoo!s that use your content pay." Works for me. I have to tell you this seems very good advice for an ailing industry. It'll be interesting to see if any of them listen. |
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