Newspapers, competition, and the bright future
Newspapers, the conventional wisdom goes, are a dying breed — dying in the face of competition from the Internet (e.g., CNN.com and USAToday.com), bloggers, television, and even video games, all of which either compete directly as information sources, or indirectly for readers’ time.
Papers are frantically trying to “reinvent” themselves — they’re creating new media departments, dabbling in audio and video, putting their columnists online creating blogs, targeting one new audience after another: kids, women, seniors, dog owners, music lovers, and so on.
They — and we — think they can clearly see the day when all this newfangled competition drives them away. They’re dinosaurs, after all.
Except.
Newspapers are only strangers to competition lately. Only in recent decades have local newspapers been master of their markets. In their heyday, newspapers faced a lot of competition — from other papers.
Many cities, even smaller ones, had at least two daily papers, if not more. (New York, at one point, had 20!) They had to fight tooth and nail for readers. And at the same time it was the high-water mark of journalism. (Sure it was also the heyday of yellow journalism. But it was certainly fun to read.)
But then the markets began to consolidate. Smaller papers folded or were bought by larger ones. Newspapers, which then and now enjoy tremendous profit margins (only pharmaceuticals and financial services companies make more money) were purchased by giant corporations. Soon markets with three or four papers became markets with one.
And that ruined the quality of newspapers; the lack of serious journalistic competition turned them bland. As virtual monopolies, they didn’t need to try as hard to attract readers. Instead of trying to win people’s eyeballs, they focused on keeping the eyeballs they had — and that meant not writing anything to drive people off.
And so it stayed for a long time.
Then the Internet came along and things began to change. People suddenly had a choice of more news sources: from other cities and other countries and other voices.
“Freedom of the press is for those who own one,” wrote newspaper journalist A. J. Liebling decades ago. As has been pointed out innumerable times, the World Wide Web means everyone owns one.
Newspapers have competition again.
To some people, that competition means the end of the newspaper. But those people show a depressing lack of historical knowledge. It was when newspapers had competition that they were at their best. When they fought for their readers they produced great work — not the bland crap we read today.
Consider the two major New York tabloids: the Daily News and the Post. Like them or not, they can hardly be called bland. And the third major daily there, The New York Times, is the largest metropolitan newspaper in the country. Competition does newspapers good.
Sure, some newspapers will respond to that competition and declining circulation with aimless panic. They’ll substitute buzzwords (“new media,” “hyperlocal,” “Web 2.0”) for a legitimate plan, or they’ll focus too much on what topics they cover (hint: how about the news?), ignoring the fact that what’s really killing papers is their blandness.
But many more will rise to the occasion. Newspapers have the best journalists, the best market penetration, and the best reputation — and they’re making a ton of money. They just happen to have the most boring writing — that’s what happens when you’re afraid to offend. That can change, and for the papers that do change it’s going to mean some grand success.
Think about this. Who would you rather date: someone who tried to be what he thought you wanted, or someone who was smart and funny and interesting? So what would you rather read, a newspaper that listened to surveys, or one that was smart and funny and interesting?
Get it?
Ms. Elenaeous says:
I wish we got the NY Post and Daily News here in town. They don’t hold back. I like the size of the paper. I like the print and boldness, not blandness. I like their stories and style. I like how they not only cover national and world news more in-depth than what we receive, they’re also able to incorporate in-depth local news for all over the city, not just one neighborhood. I think the problem with a lot of newspapers is that they have pigeon-holed themselves adhering to AP style like it was the bible. What one learned in journalism class does not surpass real experience. The editors have taken away the voices of the writers. Readers want to read the writer’s voice and now they can on-line.