Buy a Newspaper--again

A blogger at The Economist also comments (as do many others, these days). I think the central weakness in this otherwise useful post is this:

I'm content to let many of the nation's newspapers go belly up, but I'm nervous about a world where many cities are entirely without a few seasoned reporters, who make it their business to ask hard questions and keep an eye on those in need of accountability.

A few reporters--that's not going to do it; just like investigative reporting alone is not what makes a good news outlet.

In the meantime, the Detroit Free Press has announced its changes: they will only deliver the paper (which they'll continue to put out every day) to subscribers three days a week. The rest of the week, subscribers can access the entire paper on-line. Because leafing through a newspaper in front of a computer is so much fun, I'm sure that's going to boost the Free Press' readership quickly (I'm being sarcastic here). Of course, the paper had to do something, and this may well be the least painful way to address dropping revenues, especially from ads. For advertisements to go back up again, people will have to want to get the actual paper because, as Felix Salmon at Portfolio.com argues,

Newspapers are, first and last, devices for delivering ads to readers. It's the ads which account for all the profits, not the cash coming from subscribers or people who buy their paper at the newsstand.

Salmon then proceeds to argue that "news itself is free," always has been. This is fine as far as it goes, but the cut-backs at many papers suggest that it doesn't go very far. I'm not an economist by a long shot, but don't ads also pay for newsrooms, reporters, correspondents, distribution networks? The fact remains that papers (and other news outlets) need real income to sustain real, professional news gathering operations. Real income may come from ads more than anything else, but without readers willing to get the actual paper, the ads aren't going to be there either. They will go somewhere else, for example to websites. But I don't think anybody is arguing that news organizations can maintain their newsroom strength on the basis of internet advertising alone? If they could, then most of this discussion would be about a minority of old-fashioned people such as myself not wanting to spend even more time in front of the computer. But I don't think that's the case. Look at the quality of information provided for free on the internet. If it's any good, it's usually backed by a professionals , often a traditional news organization. Because there are many other ways to get "information" on-line, it's doubtful enough people are going to be willing to pay for access to the really solid sites. Look also at user tolerance for ads: it's much easier to put up with ads (i.e. consider their message) in a paper than on a website, especially if the ad rolls out over the story you're about to read. So print media should remain important venues for all kinds of advertisers also. The bottom line for me remains that as citizens we have choices, and that, on balance, a responsible choice is to spend a little money on a regular basis buying the product from a credible news organization. The easiest, most effective way to do this remains buying a newspaper. It's not expensive, it's good for your brain, and it's essential to democracy.

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