The newspaper business in the United States is in a desperate position. There are certain fundamentals needed to run a newspaper as now organized and they are in serious jeopardy of eroding, declining and disappearing.
What is needed is a fresh effort to pick up the critically important pieces of what made newspapers valuable to people -- both the editorial content and the advertising content, plus related services mostly not carrying adverting -- and reassert them in a new context more viable in today's world.
Only one newspaper needs to do this in order to show the way. Which one will it be? Time is slipping by us and the business very fast. Who will step forward and show that a newspaper, conceived in the public service history of the business, determined to make the lives of its customers better, respected, determined and valuable....that such a newspaper can succeed and in digital terms, besignificantly but professional of the people, by the people and very much for the people that newspaper seeks to serve.
Who will it be? Pretty soon, there will be no time for volunteers.
31 March 2008
26 March 2008
"The Buzz on the Bus: Pinched, Press Steps Off" - New York Times
This is discouraging, but really only if newspapers do not act creatively and professionally to deal with the challenge. There are ways to do quality for less.
21 March 2008
"Online Ad Sales Network For Newspapers Grows" - WSJ.com
As big a supporter of newspapers as I remain, this wreaks of being too little far too late. Something much more fundamental has to change before newspapers can assert a leadership role. This is not much more than applying oil to the billing and ad placement machine; it does not change the machine or, more, importantly, replace it with a much more sophisticated model that ties potential viewers of such advertising to the needs and interests of advertisers.
14 March 2008
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