Print is dead???

The newspaper is dead. Or at least dying a slow, excruciating death that should come to fruition within the next decade, as the Internet and other alternative outlets of media take over.\nThat’s the story we’ve been fed since the 1990s, but I always had trouble believing it – mostly because newspapers have absorbed all the onslaughts over the years. They survived radio. They survived television. \nYet, with the information released in the annual State of the News Media report by the Project For Excellence in Journalism, I think all the warnings are finally getting to me. To put it softly, the future looks terribly bleak.\nConsider the following from the report: in 2007, newspaper circulation dropped 2.5 percent, company earnings were down 10 percent, newspaper company stocks took huge hits – Gannet lost 35 percent of its value, McClatchy lost more than 70 percent – and advertising revenues went down 7 percent. And don’t forget more than 750 employees were axed in just the last month at major papers such as The New York Times.\nThe only good news is coming from the online divisions. Web sites have improved tremendously, which has led to a 3.7 percent increase in online readers. But even the good news comes with a smack in the face with a sock full of nickels. Ad revenue online only increased 20 percent last year – whereas it had been increasing at a 30 percent per-year rate in recent years – and only 7 percent of total revenue is coming from online advertising. \nThe simple solution to the revenue issues would be to make online users pay for content just like they would to read a hard copy. And while publications like The Wall Street Journal are getting away with this, it’s just impossible for most. The “democracy” of the Internet wouldn’t allow it because there will always be some site uploading news for free. And they cannot charge people to upload user-generated content for the same reason. The Internet has made us all not want to pay for anything.\nSadly, it seems newspapers don’t have much choice but to continue emphasizing the partnership between the print side and the online side of their publications. Many papers have been online for a less than a decade. The process is still in its infant stages. They’ve tried things that didn’t work – pop-up ads – and things that did – comments. And that’s what they’ll have to continue to do. \nPeople still want news and still want to get it from traditional news powers, just in alternative formats. Continue to produce great content online, and the readership will continue to increase, which could bring in an increase in ad revenue. The industry just needs to realize that newspapers can survive and even be profitable in the future; they’re just not going to be mega-profitable. \nAs depressing as it is, patience can see the industry through. People need the news, and we’re going to continue to give it to them, even if it is from a makeshift newsroom in our basements because we couldn’t pay our printing utility bill.