In order for a business to succeed and prosper long-term, it has to provide a service which people want or need, it must do so at a competitive price, and it must by all means provide quality merchandise and service. It must stand by its product, and honor the good faith investments of its customers. It still might fail due to a variety of factors, but those businesses with the most successful business models tend to be the most adaptable.Why then are so many newspapers going under? Could it be they are trying to be all things to all people? That might arguably work with a very limited type of commodity, but for the most part, targeted marketing is king.
General Motors learned early in its history that, in addition to assuring quality product, they were obliged to reach out to various segments of the population if they were going to thrive. Thus, they produced three different models. The Chevrolet was geared toward the working class. Pontiac was designed to be the automobile of choice for the middle class and upwardly mobile. The Cadillac was considered a rich man's car.
Guess which one has now been discontinued? And so it goes. These are hard times, and a business that doesn't adapt will likely go the way of the Saber-toothed tiger. Without a steady supply of Mastodon on which to feed, his most striking features becomes not only obsolete, they are rendered impractical.
But you don't just do something for the sake of doing something. The e-reader proposal is meant to save newspapers from extinction by marketing modern technology, but I think its proponents are missing the point. The problem isn't the delivery system, it's the product meant for consumption.
There is a reason why Bill O'Reilly reined so long as the number one cable news analyst, and why Rush Limbaugh is still the number one radio broadcaster, while people like Brit Hume and other hard news-focused analysts are relegated to the much lower rated afternoon and early evening hours. The reason for the popularity of the pundits is only partially to do with conservative politics, and this is especially true of O'Reilly, who is actually not all that conservative on a good many issues. In fact, he is on balance quite moderate, certainly in comparison to Limbaugh.
What is it, then? I hold that it is due to the fact that you know exactly where they stand on any given issue, and they don't pretend to be objective about anything. Objectivity, after all, while a worthy goal for which to aim, is nearly impossible to achieve. Fairness is somewhat more attainable, if but in small doses.
Remember, newspapers by nature in origin were always partisan. It was only over the last century that the innovation of objectivity in hard news was adopted as a business model, but by its nature it was always doomed to a limited shelf life.
Niche marketing will be the new order of the day, and it will be the business model which will achieve the longest lasting success. The old underground papers of the past are going to be the major success stories of tomorrow. They will thrive in print. They might even do a respectable business by way of e-reader.
The newspaper business is not dying. It's just experiencing growth pains. It went through a period of puberty when it decided it should "grow up" and act more adult, and in the process it became a commodity produced in a sterilized environment which betrayed few signs of intelligent life, which was found more often than not, ironically, in the pages of the editorial sections. Even the "hard-hitting investigative reports", what few there were, seemed to betray a bias. They still do.
That's why newspapers are doomed to thrive only as niche markets. Yes, this means they will produce limited profits, individually. By definition, niche markets cater to a limited audience. By the way, this audience will mostly be comprised of adults. Few if any newspapers are read by high-school and grade-school children, and so another way for the newspaper industry to pull itself up by its bootstraps might be to discontinue this canard that they are a "family newspaper". Families don't read newspapers. People read newspapers. Another one of life's ironies is doubtless that a loosening up of the censorship standards of language and expression would actually increase readership among the young.
For a reporter to declare, "During a raucous meeting at City Hall, Mr. Jones cursed the mayor in foul language which we can not print here and threatened violence on his person", is asking for trouble.
For a reporter to say, "During a raucous meeting at City Hall, Mr. Jones called the mayor a 'stupid motherfucking son-of-a-bitch' and threatened to 'kick your ass from one end of this god damned hall to the other'", is something else-it is actually reporting the news.
See the difference? In the first example, unless you are personally involved or know or are related to Mr. Jones or the Mayor, you are unlikely to care enough to read on. In the second case, you want to read on to see what happened.
Unfortunately, newspapers are still mired in the sensibilities of a by-gone era. This, in addition to the thinly disguised bias masquerading behind a veneer of objectivity in hard news coverage, is why so many papers are in trouble, and even the New York Times is barely hanging on for dear life.
The wave of the future is the old underground papers, like Cincinnati's City Beat.
When the old dinosaurs finally fall by the wayside, they will be there to take up the slack.
