The future of the newspaper industry

[Diable Rouge]

More than any other global newspaper, The Guardian seems to have best adjusted to the digital era, with its BBC-style compendium website and the bewildering array of Guardian Unlimited podcasts. But its print sales have never been robust, and it could well transpire that the paper will ultimately survive in a digital-only format. I fail to believe that the demise of physical papers is imminent, as people will always desire the option of a print read, but will newspapers eventually become free and supported entirely by advertising a la Metro? Likewise, will holding companies take the Murdoch route and hide their websites behind paywalls, or will the freely available media competition make this option impossible?

[E10 Rifle]

The future of the newspaper industry

I think the paywall ship has sailed, for all but the most long-established and specialist of sites, nor is the viability of the digital future guaranteed. Relying on advertising income for digital platforms is also fraught with risk, in these recessionary times. Ultimately, we've got to think about other ways of funding journalism, and other (not necessarily commercial) models. About which I can be a colossal bore, but don't have time to go into here. Though it's pretty obvious that if you were starting up a new media venture now, you wouldn't prioritise print.

[Stumpy Pepys]

The future of the newspaper industry

E10 Rifle wrote:

Ultimately, we've got to think about other ways of funding journalism, and other (not necessarily commercial) models. About which I can be a colossal bore, but don't have time to go into here.

You've said this a few times, but never really explained what these models are.

[garcia]

The future of the newspaper industry

yes i'd be interested to hear those colossally boring thoughts.

diable rouge - why do you think people will always desire the option of a print read? i try to avoid newspapers because they make my hands dirty.

[E10 Rifle]

The future of the newspaper industry

Briefly - ideas such as foundation-funding (such as the Bureau for Investigative Journalism), giving local media charitable trust status, "crowd-funded" journalism, levy-funding from news aggregators such as Google, worker or community co-ops. NHH may have more to add here. Some of this is inevitably going to be dismissed as pie in the sky, and some things will be more workable than others, but I don't honestly think it's any more pie in the sky anymore than a lot of existing commercial models.

I've had some involvement, through the union, with the Committee for Media Reform, which is making a submission to Leveson, who's reports I'll be ploughing through later this week. When I've got more time, I'll try and find some links.

As for newspapers, some love 'em, some no longer feel a need. Though the adversarial "print v digital" debate is essentially pointless - people get too obsessed with platforms over content.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The future of the newspaper industry

What do you mean by the platform debate? It's key to how people want to "consume" their news, and how you might charge them for it.

You can substitute "read" for "consume" if you want.

Some good ideas in your first paragraph.

[Diable Rouge]

The future of the newspaper industry

garcia wrote:

yes i'd be interested to hear those colossally boring thoughts.

diable rouge - why do you think people will always desire the option of a print read? i try to avoid newspapers because they make my hands dirty.

Well, when the Internet really started to become mainstream in Europe around the end of the millennium, people were prophesising that this marked the end of the printed book, and before long all publishing would be done online, as Stephen King was doing with his serialised e-book. What they forgot was the social aspect, that people simply like to go into newsagents/ book stores to browse through magazines and pick up a cheap paperback, and though as they say, today's paper is tomorrow's fish and chips, people will want a print paper for their train journeys, office lunchtimes etc, simply as a break from their Blackberries and Kindles.

[Stumpy Pepys]

The future of the newspaper industry

Diable Rouge wrote:

… people were prophesising that this marked the end of the printed book, and before long all publishing would be done online, as Stephen King was doing with his serialised e-book.

If you look at the figures (particularly regarding sales of Kindle books in the US), the first assertion is already happening.

What will happen in the short term is that publishing will increasingly move to a mixture of eBooks and print-on-demand. I'm not sure how the hardback will figure in this.

If you want a cheap novel, your best bet is to get one for $0.99-$2.99 from the Kindle Store.

[Stumpy Pepys]

The future of the newspaper industry

E10 Rifle wrote:

Briefly - ideas such as foundation-funding (such as the Bureau for Investigative Journalism), giving local media charitable trust status, "crowd-funded" journalism, levy-funding from news aggregators such as Google, worker or community co-ops.

Once you've boiled this down, there's only really three sources of funding here — charity, reader donations and taxation.

The charity option is going to mostly depend on the largesse of a few rich people.

Several podcasts I listen to regularly ask for reader contributions, but the proportion doing so is miniscule.

Google doesn't make any money out of Google News, so would presumably pull it rather than pay for the privilege. Plus the difficulty of defining what an aggregator is.

[Ek weet nie]

The future of the newspaper industry

Has the concept of micropayments gone completely?

I saw the Page One documentary about the New York Times recently. It's not very good but one thing that was clear was that they haven't a notion what their business model is going to be in ten years.

As for DRs point, the people browsing in bookshops are the people who have done so for years. It's less than 6 months since I got my kindle but my future book buying ratio is going to be heavily weighted towards electronic format. Ten years ago, I regularly bought CDs and newspapers. I've bought newspapers less than ten times this year. All times were when I didn't have daily internet access. People growing up now with no concept of life before Google won't be buying printed books or papers in the numbers that people did twenty years ago.

[E10 Rifle]

The future of the newspaper industry

Very long, but extraordinarily good piece on all this from the Colombia Journalism Review

[Stumpy Pepys]

The future of the newspaper industry

E10 Rifle wrote:

Very long, but extraordinarily good piece on all this from the Colombia Journalism Review

I've read too many of these kind of articles.

I'm not going to argue that the nature of journalism isn't changing — the move to electronic publishing and the myriad of communication media will result in all sorts of possibilities.

But that's really irrelevant because I'm only interested in two questions:

1. Should we have paid journalists?
2. If so, how do we pay them?

I think pretty much everyone agress that (1) is desirable. In the article above, if you dig down far enough, they suggest that news publishing could exist on a freemium model. Which is all well and good, but did I really have to read all that to find this out?

[NHH]

The future of the newspaper industry

My own little contribution to this debate

[WOM]

The future of the newspaper industry

Holy hell, NHH, that's some piece of work. I'm going to have to print that off tomorrow so I can read it old-school.

[G-Man]

The future of the newspaper industry

As for newspapers, some love 'em, some no longer feel a need. Though the adversarial "print v digital" debate is essentially pointless - people get too obsessed with platforms over content.

Amen!

[Stumpy Pepys]

The future of the newspaper industry

G.Man wrote:

As for newspapers, some love 'em, some no longer feel a need. Though the adversarial "print v digital" debate is essentially pointless - people get too obsessed with platforms over content.

Amen!

It is an important issue though, but maybe not for the reasons people think.

Yes, it costs more to print a newspaper than it does to distribute it electronically. However, with print, the publishers can control the distribution. With electronic publishing, Amazon and Apple are in control, and will take a 30% or so cut of your revenue and limit the amount of information you can get about your customers (as Apple do).

[ursus arctos]

Johnston Press, publisher of the Yorkshire Post, the i and the Scotsman (among others) and sometimes advertiser on sports ground hoardings, has gone into administration.

[Lang Spoon]

Johnston Press have been disgraceful cost cutting negligent owners of the Scotsman, but its decline really started with the fuckin Barclay Brothers and the disastrous editorship of Andrew Neil. Who somehow thought it a good idea to make the Embra establishment Paper of Record anti devolution at just the time all the establishment (bar an irredeemable wanker Tory rump) were enthusiastically (however cynically) signing up to it twenty years back.

The Scotland on Sunday imprint has tried to limp on as more than the Daily Mail with airs, but a few Dani Garvelli pieces don’t make up for the shameful neglect and idiot Blimpish reflexively Unionist populism of the last twenty years. As the Herald also seems to be entering populist clickbait contrarian death throes (certainly its columnists) under its shit foreign owners (RIP the once good Sunday Herald), the msm print media in Scotland is a sad sad broken thing. These papers once had Foreign Correspondents. Now they barely have court reporters.

Almost without anyone noticing print media in Scotland has become as piss poor or barely existing as say Wales. A weird dichotomy that Scottish print and TV media has become more London centralized and UK centric as politically and practically the country has diverged from rUK. Which can’t be good for proper (non hysterical or downright ignorant) scrutiny of Scots Govt and power structures let alone anything else.

Sad times.

[Lang Spoon]

Basically I long for the day I hear the news that a file has been sent to the CPS or Procurator Fiscal regarding Brillo pad.

[Discordant Resonance]

The Reach Media behemoth attempts to squelch a fledgling local operation in Liverpool.

[E10 Rifle]

That's this companies all over: they can only squash, never create. Their only approach for nigh-on two decades now.

Funny looking back on this thread from more than 10 years ago; I'm sure some people in 2011 would have thought all newspapers had gone by now, though things clearly haven't improved.