I don’t understand why journalists are so fascinated with covering the industry’s demise. Any other industry would be in damage control, but not us. We dance on our own graves. So, here’s some hypotheses on what’s killing us. This is merely a smattering of the grave dancing out there. Google it. You’ll be shocked.
The Pew Center thinks Craigslist is killing newspapers. Barron YoungSmith at The Plank agrees. He does, technically, blame it on the “libertarian ideology” of Craigslist, though.
Slate thinks that the decline of the newspaper’s social currency is killing newspapers.
Jeff Jacoby at the Boston Globe says that liberal bias is NOT killing newspapers.
An article at Slate’s business oriented site, The Big Money, says it’s Yelp.
An article over at WIRED says it’s definitely not the internet. Arianna Huffington doesn’t think so either. I, for one, am SHOCKED.
Bonnie Erbe wrote in a blog that the internet and bad bloggers are killing newspapers. Yes, you read that correctly. She wrote that IN A BLOG. Surely she’s one of the good guys, right? (To be fair, she does have a good point about neglecting certain rules of good journalism in the interest of right-nowism.)
Paul Fahri blames it on the Associated Press.
You know what I blame it on? First of all, I blame it on this constant focus on failure. Newspapers can’t compete with the internet, so I don’t think they should even try. Newspapers should focus on their advantage over bloggers. They should emphasize long-term investigatory pieces. They should use the filters they have at their disposal, aka experienced editors, to write better, not faster. Writers who work for newspapers should flaunt the access and legitimacy advantage they have over bloggers by using that access to add value to pieces. Talk to policymakers and movers and shakers. We need to get out there and milk that panache while we still have it!
Why should anyone buy a newspaper or even read one online if all newspapers do is rehash events in the same way that a blogger could from watching CSPAN? Newspapers already gave the milk away for free. That ship has left the dock, friends. The industry is reaping what it sowed on this one, but it’s not over. Newspapers can survive if the industry takes a moment to think about why a reasonable human being would spend money on their product. They need to focus on THE PRODUCT, not cutting costs. If they don’t bother to do that, they deserve to fail.
I agree whole heartedly. Newspapers should be in regroup and reinvent mode. Not everyone wants to read everything on the internet. But you have to make your newspaper and the articles more deep. (would that be the right word?) All I know is that our local paper has gone from mediocre to it really sucks. They can’t even write a decent gardening article.
Newspapers are not using their access to their advantage. Articles sound more like PR pieces and what is broadcast news anymore. In the Situation Room on CNN they devoted a whole news story to the Obama’s dog. Are you serious? No wonder international news outlets turn their noses up at us. Bring back the news.