The newspaper industry was flourishing when I came aboard in 1971. It was said owning a newspaper was tantamount to having a press to print money. The biggest expenses came from the costs of newsprint, ink, delivery systems, but first and foremost, the newsrooms. They were considered the “expense departments” in any news business.
Newsrooms, you see, didn’t generate revenue. They represented the salaries and the expenses required to collect and present information. Since circulation revenue pretty much paid for itself at well-managed papers, the darling department was advertising, which raked in enough dollars to keep everything afloat with a hefty profit to boot.
Then dawned the mid-1990s and the cultural explosion of the Internet. For journalism, that meant things began to change faster than anyone in the business could have imagined. No longer did readers get their news or ads primarily from ink and paper.
But many papers, often trapped in their own arrogance, were slow to accept this groundswell of change. They became confused about how to adapt financially to their product and coveted advertising space suddenly being delivered by electrons rather than newsprint.
As an industry, newspapers had been so lucrative under their advertising-driven model, why fuss with the expense and complexities of fundamental reform? But today the results among many newspapers who haven’t sprinted to stay up with the rapid changes are evident. I’ve sadly watched as one daily newspaper after another in metropolitan areas either closed or cut back on their publication cycles. There was no other choice.
It’s not necessary for me to explain to you, the intelligent reader, where things stand today. Chances are you own a cell phone that’s equivalent to a hand-held computer with immediate access to news and information you want to know.
So what does this spell not only for you, but for journalism? Will most papers survive?
For that answer I’ll recall the foresight and savvy of Walter Hussman Jr., publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, who has been wise enough to stay up with any publisher in America with this cultural shift and preserve the viability of the 14 daily and 11 weekly newspapers operated by the privately held WEHCO Media group.
Hussman said during the 1970s that the key to success in the newspaper business lies with informing the reader, also known as the customer.
More than ever, this truism is shifting the paradigm from the industry formerly driven by advertising to one where information that is credible, relevant and interesting is far more valuable to newspapers than ever before. The original model has struggled to adapt from placing ads onto newsprint to figuring out some way to meet that daunting challenge on a computer.
For me, this says the tables have turned. Now news departments, formerly deemed the necessary expense stepchild in most papers, have a crucial and elevated position.
Afriend told me several years back that one day simple credibility in a society awash in agendas, political favoritism and self-serving falsehoods would be worth money. That day has arrived. Hussman’s philosophy is validated: You can’t sell doughnuts (or anything else) if the customer doesn’t feel it’s important to him.
So for you, valued reader, the question has become what it’s worth for you to remain reliably informed and entertained with relevant information being reported within your community. While some (like me) always will prefer the smell and feel of newsprint in their hands, others today are increasingly satisfied to receive information through an electronic device. Either way, the bottom line is the value and reliability of the information to each reader.
Such revolutionary change invariably leads to one conclusion: The cost of keeping us informed will rise. It simply has to climb since advertising revenue has diminished to the point of leaving so many once-thriving papers in jeopardy of failing. Now who pays the bills to keep operating? So you’ll need to ask what staying adequately and dependably informed of local news and events is worth to you. For me, it’s invaluable. I’ll gladly sacrifice another expense to stay aware of what’s transpiring around me.
This also presents a renewed challenge to each local newspaper. Publishers, editors and reporters must
rededicate themselves to performing journalism as the First Amendment intended. I’m talking about getting beneath the surface of actions and reporting the fullest possible version of the who, what, when, where, why and how of any event. This means following the threads of truth across anyone’s doorstep to report findings accurately and thoroughly with neither friends to favor nor axes to grind. God knows there’s a world of free, uninformed opinions available in cyberspace.
In this new paradigm, there’s no place for “stenography” journalism, incomplete coverage devoid of necessary context, or anything less than fearless and complete commitment to each trusting reader. Customers willing to pay for credible local news and worthwhile journalism products must be able to rely on their paper’s tenacity, skill and ability to find and report truth in the public interest.
I’d argue that anything less than relevance and credibility risks the kind of failure we are witnessing today.
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Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected]. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.
Editorial, Pages 17 on 10/26/2013