Future of newspapers
Encyclopedia
The future of newspapers has been widely debated as the industry has faced down soaring newsprint prices, slumping ad sales, the loss of much classified advertising and precipitous drops in circulation. In recent years the number of newspapers slated for closure, bankruptcy or severe cutbacks has risen—especially in the United States
, where the industry has shed a fifth of its journalists since 2001. Revenue has plunged while competition from internet media has squeezed older print publishers.
The debate has become more urgent lately, as a deepening recession has cut profits, and as once-explosive growth in newspaper web
revenues has leveled off, forestalling what the industry hoped would become an important source of revenue. One issue is whether the newspaper industry is being hit by a cyclical
trough, or whether new technology has rendered newspapers obsolete in their traditional format. To survive, newspapers are considering combining and other options, although the outcome of such partnerships has been criticised.
, slashed home delivery to three days a week, while prodding readers to visit the newspapers' internet sites on other days. In Tucson, Arizona
, the state's oldest newspaper, the Tucson Citizen
, said it would cease publishing on March 21, 2009, when parent Gannett Company
failed to find a buyer.
A number of other large, financially troubled newspapers are seeking buyers. One of the few large dailies finding a buyer is The San Diego Union-Tribune
, which agreed to be sold to a private equity
firm for what The Wall Street Journal
called "a rock-bottom price" of less than $50 million – essentially a real estate purchase. (The newspaper was estimated to have been worth roughly $1 billion as recently as 2004.) The Sun Times Media Group, publisher of the eponymous bankrupt newspaper, fielded a meager $5 million cash bid, plus assumption of debt, for assets last claimed worth $310 million.
Large newspaper chains filing bankruptcy since December 2008 include the Tribune Company
, the Journal Register Company
, the Minneapolis Star Tribune
, Philadelphia Newspapers LLC
, Sun-Times Media Group
and Freedom Communications
.
Some newspaper chains that have purchased other papers have seen stock values plummet. The McClatchy Company, the nation's third–largest newspaper company, was the only bidder on the Knight-Ridder chain of newspapers in 2005. Since its $6.5 billion Knight-Ridder purchase, McClatchy's stock has lost more than 98% of its value. McClatchy subsequently announced large layoffs and executive pay cuts, as its shares fell into penny stock
territory. (Although McClatchy faced delisting from the New York Stock Exchange
for having a share price below $1, in September 2009, it was able to overcome this threat. Others have not been so lucky. In 2008 and 2009, three other U.S. newspaper chains have seen their shares delisted by the NYSE.)
Other newspaper company valuations have been similarly punished: the stocks of Gannett Company, Lee Enterprises
and Media General
traded at less than two dollars per share by March 2009, with The Washington Post Company's stock faring better than most, thanks to diversification into educational training programs
– and away from publishing. Similarly, UK-based Pearson PLC
, owner of The Financial Times, increased earnings in 2008 despite a drop in newspaper profits, thanks to diversification away from publishing.
The New York Times Company
, hard-pressed for cash as its shares slid below five dollars per share, suspended its dividend, sold and leased back part of its headquarters, and sold preferred shares to Mexican businessman Carlos Slim in return for a cash infusion. But the credit rating agencies still cut the rating on Times Company's debt to junk status, and the cash crunch at The Times
prompted it to threaten to shutter its Boston Globe unless workers made deep concessions. Even News Corp., the diversified
media holding company overseen by Rupert Murdoch
, was hit, forced to write down
much of the value of newspaper publisher Dow Jones & Co. that it purchased for $5 billion in 2007. Apparently shelved are plans announced by Murdoch at the time of the acquisition to expand The Wall Street Journal
s newsroom.
The deterioration in the United States
newspaper market led one senator to introduce a bill in March 2009 allowing newspaper companies to restructure as non-profit corporations with an array of tax breaks. The Newspaper Revitalization Act would allow newspapers to operate as nonprofits similar to public broadcasting
companies, barring them from making political endorsements.
, newspaper publishers have been similarly hit. In late 2008 The Independent
announced job cuts. In January the chain Associated Newspapers
sold a controlling stake in the London Evening Standard as it announced a 24% decline in 2008 ad revenues. In March 2009 parent company Daily Mail and General Trust
said job cuts would be deeper than expected, spanning its newspapers, which include the Leicester Mercury
, the Bristol Evening Post
and the Derby Telegraph. One industry report predicts that 1 in 10 UK print publications will cut its frequency of publication in half, go online only or shut in 2009.
's arrival in the 1950s presaged the decline of newspapers' importance as most people's source of daily news, the explosion of the internet in the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century increased the panoply of media choices available to the average reader while further cutting into newspapers' hegemony as the source of news.
Both television and the Internet bring news to the consumer faster and in a more visual style than newspapers, which are constrained by their physical form and the need to be physically manufactured and distributed. The competing mediums also offer advertisers
the opportunity to use moving images and sound. And the internet's search function
allows advertisers to tailor their pitch to readers who have revealed what information they're seeking – an enormous advantage.
The Internet has also gone a step further than television in eroding the advertising income of newspapers, as – unlike broadcast media – it proves a convenient vehicle for classified advertising
, particularly in categories such as jobs, vehicles, and real estate. Free services like Craigslist
have decimated the classified advertising departments of many newspapers, some of which depended on classifieds for 70% of their ad revenue. At the same time, newspapers have been pinched by consolidation of large department stores, which once accounted for substantial advertising sums.
Press baron
Rupert Murdoch
once described the profits flowing from his stable of newspapers as "rivers of gold." But, said Murdoch several years later, "sometimes rivers dry up." "Simply put," wrote Buffalo News owner Warren Buffett
, "if cable and satellite broadcasting, as well as the internet, had come along first, newspapers as we know them probably would never have existed."
As their revenues have been squeezed, newspapers have also been increasingly assailed by other media taking away not only their readers, but their principal sources of profit. Many of these 'new media' are not saddled with expensive union contracts, printing presses, delivery fleets and overhead built over decades. Many of these competitors are simply 'aggregators' of news, often derived from print sources, but without print media's capital-intensive overhead. Some estimates put the percentage of online news derived from newspapers at 80%.
"Newspapers are doing the reporting in this country," observed John S. Carroll
, editor of The Los Angeles Times for five years. "Google
and Yahoo aren't those people putting reporters on the street in any number. Blogs cannot afford it." (Editor Carroll resigned from The Times
in 2005 in the face of parent Tribune Company
's demands that he slash newsroom staff.)
Many newspapers also suffer from the broad trend toward “fragmentation” of all media – in which small numbers of large media outlets attempting to serve substantial portions of the population are replaced by an abundance of smaller and more specialized organizations, often aiming only to serve specific interest groups. So-called narrowcasting
has splintered audiences into smaller and smaller slivers. But newspapers have not been alone in this: the rise of cable television
and satellite television
at the expense of network television in countries such as the United States
and United Kingdom
is another example of this fragmentation.
, has also changed the habits of readers. Instead of perusing general interest publications, such as newspapers, readers are more likely to seek particular writers, blogs or sources of information through targeted searches, rendering the agglomeration of newspapers increasingly irrelevant. "Power is shifting to the individual journalist from the news outlet with more people seeking out names through search, e-mail, blogs and social media," the industry publication Editor & Publisher
noted in summarizing a recent study from the Project for Excellence in Journalism
foundation.
"When we go online," writes columnist
Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times
, "each of us is our own editor, our own gatekeeper."
Where once the ability to disseminate information was restricted to those with printing presses or broadcast mechanisms, the internet has enabled thousands of individual commentators to communicate directly with others through blogs or instant message services. Even open journalism projects like Wikipedia have contributed to the reordering of the media landscape, as readers are no longer restricted to established print organs for information.
But the search engine experience has left some newspaper proprietors cold. "The aggregators and plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content," Rupert Murdoch told the World Media Summit in Beijing
, China
. "If we do not take advantage of the current movement toward paid content, it will be the content creators – the people in this hall – who will pay the ultimate price and the content kleptomaniacs who triumph."
Critics of the newspaper as a medium also argue that while today's newspapers may appear visually different from their predecessors a century ago, in many respects they have changed little and have failed to keep pace with changes in society. The technology revolution has meant that readers accustomed to waiting for a daily newspaper can now receive up-to-the-minute updates from web portals, bloggers and new services such as Twitter
. The expanding reach of broadband internet access means such updates have become commonplace for many users, especially the more affluent, an audience cultivated by advertisers.
The gloomy outlook is not universal. In some countries, such as India
, the newspaper remains more popular than internet and broadcast media. Even where the problems are felt most keenly, in North America and Europe, there have been recent success stories, such as the dramatic rise of free daily newspapers, like those of Sweden
's Metro International
, as well as papers targeted towards the Hispanic
market, local weekly shoppers, and so-called hyperlocal news
.
But these new revenue streams, such as that from newspapers' proprietary web sites, are often a fraction of the sums generated by the previous advertisement- and circulation-driven revenue streams, and so newspapers have been forced to curtail their overhead while simultaneously trying to entice new users. With revenues plummeting, many newspapers have slashed news bureaus and journalists, while still attempting to publish compelling content – much of it more interactive, more lifestyle-driven and more celebrity-conscious.
In response to falling ad revenues and plunging circulation, many newspapers have cut staff as well as editorial content, and in a vicious cycle, those cuts often spur more and deeper circulation declines—triggering more loss of ad revenues. "No industry can cut its way to future success," says industry analyst John Morton. "At some point the business must improve."
Overall, in the United States, average operating profit margins for newspapers remain at 11%. But that figure is falling rapidly, and in many cases is inadequate to service the debt that some newspaper companies took on during better times. And while circulation has dropped 2% annually for years, that decline has accelerated.
The circulation decline, coupled with a 23% drop in 2008 newspaper ad revenues, have proven a double whammy for some newspaper chains. Combined with the current recession, the cloudy outlook for future profits has meant that many newspapers put on the block have been unable to find buyers, who remain concerned with increasing competition, dwindling profits and a business model that seems increasingly antiquated.
"As succeeding generations grow up with the Web and lose the habit of reading print," noted The Columbia Journalism Review in 2007, "it seems improbable that newspapers can survive with a cost structure at least 50% higher than their nimbler and cheaper Internet competitors." The problem facing newspapers is generational: while in 2005 an estimated 70% of older Americans read a newspaper daily, fewer than 20% of younger Americans did.
"It is the fundamental problem facing the industry," writes newspaper analyst Morton. "It's probably not going away. And no one has figured a way out."
, which have been able to generate substantial revenues from subscribers whose subscriptions are often underwritten by corporate employers. (Subscriptions to the Journal's paid website were up 7% in 2008.) Some general-interest newspapers, even high-profile papers like The New York Times
, have been forced to drop paid internet subscription services. Times Select, the Timess pay service, lasted for exactly two years before the company abandoned it.
Within the industry, there is little consensus on the best strategy for survival. Some pin their hopes on new technologies such as e-paper or radical revisions of the newspaper such as the Daily Me
; others, like a recent cover story in Time
magazine, have advocated a system that includes both subscriptions as well as micro-payments for individual stories.
In crafting a strategy in the era of burgeoning sources of information, some newspaper analysts believe the wisest move is embracing the Internet, and exploiting the considerable brand value
and consumer trust that newspapers have built over decades. But revenues from online editions have come nowhere near matching previous print income from circulation and advertising sales, and many newspapers struggle to maintain their previous levels of reporting amidst eroding profits (Newspapers get only about one-tenth to one-twentieth the revenue for a web reader that they do for a print reader).)
With profits falling, many newspapers have cut back on their most expensive reporting projects – overseas bureaus and investigative journalism. Some investigative projects often take months, with their payoff uncertain. In the past, larger newspapers often devoted a portion of their editorial budget to such efforts, but with ad dollars drying up, many papers are looking closer at the productivity of individual reporters, and judging speculative investments in investigative reports as non-essential.
Some advocates have suggested that instead of investigative reports funded by newspapers, that non-profit foundations pick up the slack. The new non-profit ProPublica
, a $10–million–a–year foundation devoted solely to investigative reporting and overseen by former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Steiger, for instance, hopes that its 18 reporters will be able to release their investigative reports free, courtesy of partnerships with such outlets as The New York Times
, The Atlantic and 60 Minutes
. The Huffington Post also announced that it would set aside funds for investigative reporting. Other industry observers are now clamoring for government subsidies to the newspaper industry.
But investigative reports aside, what troubles some observers is that the reliability and accountability of newspapers is being replaced by a sea of anonymous bloggers, many with uncertain credentials and points of view. Where once the reader of a daily newspaper might consume reporting, for instance, by an established Cairo bureau chief for a major newspaper, today that same reader might be directed by a search engine to an anonymous blogger with cloudy allegiances, training or ability.
s economics writer James Surowiecki
, "is that even as big papers have become less profitable they've arguably become more popular."
As the demand for news has exploded, so have consumers of the output of newspapers. (Both nytimes.com and washingtonpost.com, for instance, rank among the top 20 global news sites. But those consumers are now reading newspapers online for free, and although newspapers have been able to convert some of that viewership into ad dollars, it is a trickle compared to previous sources. At most newspapers, web advertising accounts for only 10–15% of revenues.
Some observers have compared the dilemma to that faced by the music industry. "What's going on in the news business is a lot like what's happening with music," said editor Paul Steiger
, a 43–year journalism veteran. Free distribution of content through the internet has caused "a total collapse of the business model."
The revenue streams that newspapers counted on to subsidize their product have changed irrevocably: in 2008, according to a study by the Pew Research Center
, more people in the United States got their news for free on the internet than paid for it by buying a newspaper or magazine. "With newspapers entering bankruptcy even as their audience grows, the threat is not just to the companies that own them, but also the news itself," observed writer David Carr
of The New York Times
in a January 2009 column.
, Spain
, the World Association of Newspapers
has titled the convention's subject "Newspapers Focus on Print & Advertising Revenues in Difficult Times."
In September 2008, the World Association of Newspapers called for regulators to block a proposed Google–Yahoo advertising partnership, calling it a threat to newspaper industry revenues worldwide. The WAN painted a stark picture of the threat posed to newspapers by the search engine giants. "Perhaps never in the history of newspaper publishing has a single, commercial entity threatened to exert this much control over the destiny of the press," said the Paris-based global newspaper organization of the proposed pact.
But there are bright spots in the world market for newspapers. At its 2008 convention, held in Gothenburg
, Sweden
, the World Association of Newspapers released figures showing newspaper circulations and advertising had actually climbed in the previous year. Newspaper sales were up nearly 2.6% the previous year, and up 9.4% over the past five years. Free daily newspapers, noted the WAN, accounted for nearly 7% of all global newspaper circulation – and a whopping 23% of European newspaper circulation. Of the world's 100 best–selling daily newspapers, 74 are published in Asia – with China, Japan and India accounting for 62 of those.
Sales of newspapers rose in Latin America
, Asia
and the Middle East
, but fell in other regions of the world, including Western Europe
, where the proliferation of free dailies helped bolster overall circulation figures. While internet revenues are rising for the industry, the bulk of its web revenues come from a few areas, with most revenue generated in the United States, western Europe
and Asia–Pacific region.
edition familiar to older readers. It may become a hybrid, part-print and part-internet, or perhaps eventually, as has happened with several newspapers, including the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
, the Christian Science Monitor and the Ann Arbor News
, internet only. In the meantime, the transition from the printed page to whatever comes next will likely be fraught with challenges, both for the newspaper industry and for its consumers.
"My expectation," wrote executive editor Bill Keller
of The New York Times
in January 2009, "is that for the foreseeable future our business will continue to be a mix of print and online journalism, with the growth online offsetting the (gradual, we hope) decline of print." The paper
in newspaper may go away, insist industry stalwarts, but the news will remain. "Paper is dying," said Nick Bilton, a technologist for The Times
, "but it's just a device. Replacing it with pixels is a better experience." On September 8, 2010, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Chairman and Publisher of The New York Times
, told an International Newsroom Summit in London that "We will stop printing the New York Times sometime in the future, date TBD."
But even as pixels replace print, and as newspapers undergo wrenching surgery, necessitating deep cutbacks, reallocation of remaining reporters, and the slashing of decades-old overhead, some observers remain optimistic. What emerges may be 'newspapers' unrecognizable to older readers, but which may be more timely, more topical and more flexible.
"Journalistic outlets will discover," wrote Michael Hirschorn in The Atlantic, "that the Web allows (okay, forces) them to concentrate on developing expertise in a narrower set of issues and interests, while helping journalists from other places and publications find new audiences." The 'newspaper' of the future, say Hirschorn and others, may resemble The Huffington Post
more than anything flung at today's stoops and driveways.
Much of that experimentation may happen in the world's fastest-growing newspaper markets. "The number of newspapers and their circulation has declined the world over except in India and China," according to former CEO Olivier Fleurot of The Financial Times. "The world is becoming more digital but technology has helped newspapers as much as the Internet." Making those technological changes work for them, instead of against them, will decide whether newspapers remain vital – or roadkill
on the information superhighway
.
, part of Arizona State University
, a course on “The Business of Journalism” was retitled "“The Business and Future of Journalism” Introductory level courses at the Medill School of Journalism
at Northwestern University
include “Multimedia Storytelling” and “Introduction to 21st-Century Media.” As print journalism wanes, journalism schools are focusing on the internet
as a distribution medium, and are recalibrating courses to hone skills needed for jobs in the 21st century. Schools now include classes on computer programming as well as entrepreneurship. Rich Beckman, a professor at the University of Miami
, said “There were deans all over the country saying, ‘We’re never going to teach computer programming in J-school.’ Well, now they are.” Centers for teaching new media innovation are being created at Columbia University
and the City University of New York
.
Although newspapers are struggling, and journalism jobs being eliminated, applications at the nation's journalism schools are increasing. The Columbia Journalism School
reports a 44% jump from 2008, and the Annenberg School for Communication reports a 20% increase. Other schools report similar increases.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, where the industry has shed a fifth of its journalists since 2001. Revenue has plunged while competition from internet media has squeezed older print publishers.
The debate has become more urgent lately, as a deepening recession has cut profits, and as once-explosive growth in newspaper web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
revenues has leveled off, forestalling what the industry hoped would become an important source of revenue. One issue is whether the newspaper industry is being hit by a cyclical
Business cycle
The term business cycle refers to economy-wide fluctuations in production or economic activity over several months or years...
trough, or whether new technology has rendered newspapers obsolete in their traditional format. To survive, newspapers are considering combining and other options, although the outcome of such partnerships has been criticised.
In the United States
Since the beginning of 2009, the United States has seen a number of major metropolitan dailies shuttered or drastically pruned after no buyers emerged, including The Rocky Mountain News, closed in February, and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, reduced to a bare-bones internet operation. The San Francisco Chronicle narrowly averted closure when employees made steep concessions. In Detroit, both newspapers, The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit NewsThe Detroit News
The Detroit News is one of the two major newspapers in the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan. The paper began in 1873, when it rented space in the rival Free Press's building. The News absorbed the Detroit Tribune on February 1, 1919, the Detroit Journal on July 21, 1922, and on November 7, 1960,...
, slashed home delivery to three days a week, while prodding readers to visit the newspapers' internet sites on other days. In Tucson, Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
, the state's oldest newspaper, the Tucson Citizen
Tucson Citizen
The Tucson Citizen was a daily newspaper in Tucson, Arizona. It was founded by Richard C. McCormick with John Wasson as publisher and editor on October 15, 1870 as the Arizona Citizen....
, said it would cease publishing on March 21, 2009, when parent Gannett Company
Gannett Company
Gannett Company, Inc. is a publicly-traded media holding company headquartered in Tysons Corner, Virginia, United States, near McLean. It is the largest U.S. newspaper publisher as measured by total daily circulation. Its assets include the national newspaper USA Today and the weekly USA Weekend...
failed to find a buyer.
A number of other large, financially troubled newspapers are seeking buyers. One of the few large dailies finding a buyer is The San Diego Union-Tribune
The San Diego Union-Tribune
-Predecessors:The predecessor newspapers of the Union-Tribune were:* San Diego Sun, founded 1861 and merged with the Evening Tribune in 1939.* San Diego Union, founded October 10, 1868.* Evening Tribune, founded December 2, 1895.-Ownership:...
, which agreed to be sold to a private equity
Private equity
Private equity, in finance, is an asset class consisting of equity securities in operating companies that are not publicly traded on a stock exchange....
firm for what The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
called "a rock-bottom price" of less than $50 million – essentially a real estate purchase. (The newspaper was estimated to have been worth roughly $1 billion as recently as 2004.) The Sun Times Media Group, publisher of the eponymous bankrupt newspaper, fielded a meager $5 million cash bid, plus assumption of debt, for assets last claimed worth $310 million.
Large newspaper chains filing bankruptcy since December 2008 include the Tribune Company
Tribune Company
The Tribune Company is a large American multimedia corporation based in Chicago, Illinois. It is the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher, with ten daily newspapers and commuter tabloids including Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida...
, the Journal Register Company
Journal Register Company
The Journal Register Company is an American media company, serving an audience of 21 million Americans in 992 communities. The company operates more than 350 multi-platform products in 992 communities. The company is led by CEO John Paton who openly blogs about the changes he is making to transform...
, the Minneapolis Star Tribune
Star Tribune
The Star Tribune is the largest newspaper in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is published seven days each week in an edition for the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area. A statewide version is also available across Minnesota and parts of Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota, and North Dakota. The...
, Philadelphia Newspapers LLC
Philadelphia Media Holdings
Philadelphia Media Holdings LLC was an American holding company located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded by Brian Tierney in 2006, the company owned The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News...
, Sun-Times Media Group
Sun-Times Media Group
Sun-Times Media Group is a Chicago-based newspaper publisher. It is known for its prior association with controversial Canadian businessman Conrad Black.-History:...
and Freedom Communications
Freedom Communications
Freedom Communications, Inc. is a media conglomerate in the United States. It owns approximately 100 daily and weekly newspapers in the US, with a combined daily circulation of nearly one million subscribers, and also operates over seventy local news websites...
.
Some newspaper chains that have purchased other papers have seen stock values plummet. The McClatchy Company, the nation's third–largest newspaper company, was the only bidder on the Knight-Ridder chain of newspapers in 2005. Since its $6.5 billion Knight-Ridder purchase, McClatchy's stock has lost more than 98% of its value. McClatchy subsequently announced large layoffs and executive pay cuts, as its shares fell into penny stock
Penny stock
In the United States, penny stocks are common shares of small public companies that trade at less than $1.00. In some countries, similar shares of stock are known as cent stocks.-Concerns for investors:...
territory. (Although McClatchy faced delisting from the New York Stock Exchange
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...
for having a share price below $1, in September 2009, it was able to overcome this threat. Others have not been so lucky. In 2008 and 2009, three other U.S. newspaper chains have seen their shares delisted by the NYSE.)
Other newspaper company valuations have been similarly punished: the stocks of Gannett Company, Lee Enterprises
Lee Enterprises
Lee Enterprises is a publicly traded American media company. It publishes 54 daily newspapers in 23 states, and more than 300 weekly, classified, and specialty publications. Lee Enterprises was founded in 1890 by A.W. Lee and is based in Davenport, Iowa....
and Media General
Media General
Media General, Inc. is a media company based in the Southeastern United States. Its major properties include newspapers such as The Tampa Tribune, the Winston-Salem Journal, and the Richmond Times-Dispatch, as well as numerous television stations, such as flagship station WFLA-TV.The company was...
traded at less than two dollars per share by March 2009, with The Washington Post Company's stock faring better than most, thanks to diversification into educational training programs
Kaplan, Inc.
Kaplan, Inc. is a for-profit corporation headquartered in New York City and was founded in 1938 by Stanley Kaplan. Kaplan provides higher education programs, professional training courses, test preparation materials and other services for various levels of education...
– and away from publishing. Similarly, UK-based Pearson PLC
Pearson PLC
Pearson plc is a global media and education company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is both the largest education company and the largest book publisher in the world, with consumer imprints including Penguin, Dorling Kindersley and Ladybird...
, owner of The Financial Times, increased earnings in 2008 despite a drop in newspaper profits, thanks to diversification away from publishing.
The New York Times Company
The New York Times Company
The New York Times Company is an American media company best known as the publisher of its namesake, The New York Times. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. has served as Chairman of the Board since 1997. It is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City....
, hard-pressed for cash as its shares slid below five dollars per share, suspended its dividend, sold and leased back part of its headquarters, and sold preferred shares to Mexican businessman Carlos Slim in return for a cash infusion. But the credit rating agencies still cut the rating on Times Company's debt to junk status, and the cash crunch at The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
prompted it to threaten to shutter its Boston Globe unless workers made deep concessions. Even News Corp., the diversified
Diversified
Diversified technique is the most commonly used adjustment technique by chiropractors. Like many chiropractic and osteopathic manipulative techniques, Diversified is characterized by a high-velocity, low-amplitude thrust...
media holding company overseen by Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....
, was hit, forced to write down
Write-off
The term write-off describes a reduction in recognized value. In accounting terminology, it refers to recognition of the reduced or zero value of an asset. In income tax statements, it refers to a reduction of taxable income as recognition of certain expenses required to produce the income...
much of the value of newspaper publisher Dow Jones & Co. that it purchased for $5 billion in 2007. Apparently shelved are plans announced by Murdoch at the time of the acquisition to expand The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
s newsroom.
The deterioration in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
newspaper market led one senator to introduce a bill in March 2009 allowing newspaper companies to restructure as non-profit corporations with an array of tax breaks. The Newspaper Revitalization Act would allow newspapers to operate as nonprofits similar to public broadcasting
Public broadcasting
Public broadcasting includes radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing and commercial financing.Public broadcasting may be...
companies, barring them from making political endorsements.
In the United Kingdom
In the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, newspaper publishers have been similarly hit. In late 2008 The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
announced job cuts. In January the chain Associated Newspapers
Associated Newspapers
Associated Newspapers is a large national newspaper publisher in the UK, which is a subsidiary of the Daily Mail and General Trust. The group was established in 1905 and is currently based at Northcliffe House in Kensington...
sold a controlling stake in the London Evening Standard as it announced a 24% decline in 2008 ad revenues. In March 2009 parent company Daily Mail and General Trust
Daily Mail and General Trust
Daily Mail and General Trust plc is a British media conglomerate, one of the largest in Europe. In the UK, it has interests in national and regional newspapers, television and radio. The company has extensive activities based outside the UK, through Northcliffe Media, DMG Radio Australia, DMG World...
said job cuts would be deeper than expected, spanning its newspapers, which include the Leicester Mercury
Leicester Mercury
The Leicester Mercury is a British regional newspaper, owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust, for the city of Leicester and the counties of Leicestershire and Rutland...
, the Bristol Evening Post
Bristol Evening Post
The Bristol Evening Post is a newspaper covering news in the city of Bristol, including stories from the whole of Greater Bristol, Northern Somerset and South Gloucestershire....
and the Derby Telegraph. One industry report predicts that 1 in 10 UK print publications will cut its frequency of publication in half, go online only or shut in 2009.
The newspaper market in history
The newspaper industry has always been cyclical, and the industry has weathered previous troughs. But while televisionTelevision
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
's arrival in the 1950s presaged the decline of newspapers' importance as most people's source of daily news, the explosion of the internet in the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century increased the panoply of media choices available to the average reader while further cutting into newspapers' hegemony as the source of news.
Both television and the Internet bring news to the consumer faster and in a more visual style than newspapers, which are constrained by their physical form and the need to be physically manufactured and distributed. The competing mediums also offer advertisers
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
the opportunity to use moving images and sound. And the internet's search function
Web search engine
A web search engine is designed to search for information on the World Wide Web and FTP servers. The search results are generally presented in a list of results often referred to as SERPS, or "search engine results pages". The information may consist of web pages, images, information and other...
allows advertisers to tailor their pitch to readers who have revealed what information they're seeking – an enormous advantage.
The Internet has also gone a step further than television in eroding the advertising income of newspapers, as – unlike broadcast media – it proves a convenient vehicle for classified advertising
Classified advertising
Classified advertising is a form of advertising which is particularly common in newspapers, online and other periodicals which may be sold or distributed free of charge...
, particularly in categories such as jobs, vehicles, and real estate. Free services like Craigslist
Craigslist
Craigslist is a centralized network of online communities featuring free online classified advertisements, with sections devoted to jobs, housing, personals, for sale, services, community, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums....
have decimated the classified advertising departments of many newspapers, some of which depended on classifieds for 70% of their ad revenue. At the same time, newspapers have been pinched by consolidation of large department stores, which once accounted for substantial advertising sums.
Press baron
Media proprietor
A media proprietor is a person who controls, either through personal ownership or a dominant position in any media enterprise. Those with significant control of a public company in the mass media may also be called "media moguls", "tycoons", "barons", or "bosses".The figure of the media proprietor...
Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....
once described the profits flowing from his stable of newspapers as "rivers of gold." But, said Murdoch several years later, "sometimes rivers dry up." "Simply put," wrote Buffalo News owner Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett
Warren Edward Buffett is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is widely regarded as one of the most successful investors in the world. Often introduced as "legendary investor, Warren Buffett", he is the primary shareholder, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is...
, "if cable and satellite broadcasting, as well as the internet, had come along first, newspapers as we know them probably would never have existed."
As their revenues have been squeezed, newspapers have also been increasingly assailed by other media taking away not only their readers, but their principal sources of profit. Many of these 'new media' are not saddled with expensive union contracts, printing presses, delivery fleets and overhead built over decades. Many of these competitors are simply 'aggregators' of news, often derived from print sources, but without print media's capital-intensive overhead. Some estimates put the percentage of online news derived from newspapers at 80%.
"Newspapers are doing the reporting in this country," observed John S. Carroll
John Carroll (journalist)
John S. Carroll was the editor of the Los Angeles Times and The Baltimore Sun. During his tenure the Times won 13 Pulitzer Prizes.-Early career:...
, editor of The Los Angeles Times for five years. "Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
and Yahoo aren't those people putting reporters on the street in any number. Blogs cannot afford it." (Editor Carroll resigned from The Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
in 2005 in the face of parent Tribune Company
Tribune Company
The Tribune Company is a large American multimedia corporation based in Chicago, Illinois. It is the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher, with ten daily newspapers and commuter tabloids including Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida...
's demands that he slash newsroom staff.)
Many newspapers also suffer from the broad trend toward “fragmentation” of all media – in which small numbers of large media outlets attempting to serve substantial portions of the population are replaced by an abundance of smaller and more specialized organizations, often aiming only to serve specific interest groups. So-called narrowcasting
Narrowcasting
Narrowcasting has traditionally been understood as the dissemination of information to a narrow audience, not to the general public. Narrowcasting involves aiming media messages at specific segments of the public defined by values, preferences, or demographic attributes. Also called niche...
has splintered audiences into smaller and smaller slivers. But newspapers have not been alone in this: the rise of cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
and satellite television
Satellite television
Satellite television is television programming delivered by the means of communications satellite and received by an outdoor antenna, usually a parabolic mirror generally referred to as a satellite dish, and as far as household usage is concerned, a satellite receiver either in the form of an...
at the expense of network television in countries such as the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
is another example of this fragmentation.
Technological change comes to newspapers
The increasing use of the internet's search function, primarily through large engines such as GoogleGoogle
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
, has also changed the habits of readers. Instead of perusing general interest publications, such as newspapers, readers are more likely to seek particular writers, blogs or sources of information through targeted searches, rendering the agglomeration of newspapers increasingly irrelevant. "Power is shifting to the individual journalist from the news outlet with more people seeking out names through search, e-mail, blogs and social media," the industry publication Editor & Publisher
Editor & Publisher
Editor & Publisher is a monthly magazine covering the North American newspaper industry. It is based in New York City. E&P calls itself "America's Oldest Journal Covering the Newspaper Industry" and describes itself on its website as "the authoritative journal covering all aspects of the North...
noted in summarizing a recent study from the Project for Excellence in Journalism
Project for Excellence in Journalism
The Project for Excellence in Journalism is a non-profit research organization in the US that uses empirical methods to evaluate and study the performance of the press. It asserts that it is "non partisan, non ideological and non political"...
foundation.
"When we go online," writes columnist
Columnist
A columnist is a journalist who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs....
Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, "each of us is our own editor, our own gatekeeper."
Where once the ability to disseminate information was restricted to those with printing presses or broadcast mechanisms, the internet has enabled thousands of individual commentators to communicate directly with others through blogs or instant message services. Even open journalism projects like Wikipedia have contributed to the reordering of the media landscape, as readers are no longer restricted to established print organs for information.
But the search engine experience has left some newspaper proprietors cold. "The aggregators and plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content," Rupert Murdoch told the World Media Summit in Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. "If we do not take advantage of the current movement toward paid content, it will be the content creators – the people in this hall – who will pay the ultimate price and the content kleptomaniacs who triumph."
Critics of the newspaper as a medium also argue that while today's newspapers may appear visually different from their predecessors a century ago, in many respects they have changed little and have failed to keep pace with changes in society. The technology revolution has meant that readers accustomed to waiting for a daily newspaper can now receive up-to-the-minute updates from web portals, bloggers and new services such as Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
. The expanding reach of broadband internet access means such updates have become commonplace for many users, especially the more affluent, an audience cultivated by advertisers.
The gloomy outlook is not universal. In some countries, such as India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, the newspaper remains more popular than internet and broadcast media. Even where the problems are felt most keenly, in North America and Europe, there have been recent success stories, such as the dramatic rise of free daily newspapers, like those of Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
's Metro International
Metro International
Metro International is a Swedish media company based in Luxembourg that publishes the Metro newspapers. Metro International's advertising sales have grown at a compound annual growth rate of 41% since launch of the first newspaper edition in 1995. It is a freesheet, meaning that distribution is...
, as well as papers targeted towards the Hispanic
Hispanic
Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...
market, local weekly shoppers, and so-called hyperlocal news
Local news
In journalism, local news refers to news coverage of events in a local context which would not normally be of interest to those of other localities, or otherwise be of national or international scope.-Television:...
.
But these new revenue streams, such as that from newspapers' proprietary web sites, are often a fraction of the sums generated by the previous advertisement- and circulation-driven revenue streams, and so newspapers have been forced to curtail their overhead while simultaneously trying to entice new users. With revenues plummeting, many newspapers have slashed news bureaus and journalists, while still attempting to publish compelling content – much of it more interactive, more lifestyle-driven and more celebrity-conscious.
In response to falling ad revenues and plunging circulation, many newspapers have cut staff as well as editorial content, and in a vicious cycle, those cuts often spur more and deeper circulation declines—triggering more loss of ad revenues. "No industry can cut its way to future success," says industry analyst John Morton. "At some point the business must improve."
Overall, in the United States, average operating profit margins for newspapers remain at 11%. But that figure is falling rapidly, and in many cases is inadequate to service the debt that some newspaper companies took on during better times. And while circulation has dropped 2% annually for years, that decline has accelerated.
The circulation decline, coupled with a 23% drop in 2008 newspaper ad revenues, have proven a double whammy for some newspaper chains. Combined with the current recession, the cloudy outlook for future profits has meant that many newspapers put on the block have been unable to find buyers, who remain concerned with increasing competition, dwindling profits and a business model that seems increasingly antiquated.
"As succeeding generations grow up with the Web and lose the habit of reading print," noted The Columbia Journalism Review in 2007, "it seems improbable that newspapers can survive with a cost structure at least 50% higher than their nimbler and cheaper Internet competitors." The problem facing newspapers is generational: while in 2005 an estimated 70% of older Americans read a newspaper daily, fewer than 20% of younger Americans did.
"It is the fundamental problem facing the industry," writes newspaper analyst Morton. "It's probably not going away. And no one has figured a way out."
Financial strategies for an industry
While newspaper companies continue to produce much of the award-winning journalism, consumers of that journalism are less willing to pay for it in a world where information on the web is plentiful and free. Plans for web-based subscription services have largely faltered, with the exception of financial outlets like The Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
, which have been able to generate substantial revenues from subscribers whose subscriptions are often underwritten by corporate employers. (Subscriptions to the Journal's paid website were up 7% in 2008.) Some general-interest newspapers, even high-profile papers like The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, have been forced to drop paid internet subscription services. Times Select, the Timess pay service, lasted for exactly two years before the company abandoned it.
Within the industry, there is little consensus on the best strategy for survival. Some pin their hopes on new technologies such as e-paper or radical revisions of the newspaper such as the Daily Me
Daily Me
The Daily Me is a term popularized by MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte to describe a virtual daily newspaper customized for an individual's tastes. Negroponte discusses it in his 1995 book, Being Digital, referencing a project under way at the media lab, Fishwrap...
; others, like a recent cover story in Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine, have advocated a system that includes both subscriptions as well as micro-payments for individual stories.
In crafting a strategy in the era of burgeoning sources of information, some newspaper analysts believe the wisest move is embracing the Internet, and exploiting the considerable brand value
Brand
The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."...
and consumer trust that newspapers have built over decades. But revenues from online editions have come nowhere near matching previous print income from circulation and advertising sales, and many newspapers struggle to maintain their previous levels of reporting amidst eroding profits (Newspapers get only about one-tenth to one-twentieth the revenue for a web reader that they do for a print reader).)
With profits falling, many newspapers have cut back on their most expensive reporting projects – overseas bureaus and investigative journalism. Some investigative projects often take months, with their payoff uncertain. In the past, larger newspapers often devoted a portion of their editorial budget to such efforts, but with ad dollars drying up, many papers are looking closer at the productivity of individual reporters, and judging speculative investments in investigative reports as non-essential.
Some advocates have suggested that instead of investigative reports funded by newspapers, that non-profit foundations pick up the slack. The new non-profit ProPublica
ProPublica
ProPublica is a non-profit corporation based in New York City. It describes itself as an independent non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. In 2010 it became the first online news source to win a Pulitzer Prize, for a piece written by one of its...
, a $10–million–a–year foundation devoted solely to investigative reporting and overseen by former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Steiger, for instance, hopes that its 18 reporters will be able to release their investigative reports free, courtesy of partnerships with such outlets as The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, The Atlantic and 60 Minutes
60 Minutes
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation....
. The Huffington Post also announced that it would set aside funds for investigative reporting. Other industry observers are now clamoring for government subsidies to the newspaper industry.
But investigative reports aside, what troubles some observers is that the reliability and accountability of newspapers is being replaced by a sea of anonymous bloggers, many with uncertain credentials and points of view. Where once the reader of a daily newspaper might consume reporting, for instance, by an established Cairo bureau chief for a major newspaper, today that same reader might be directed by a search engine to an anonymous blogger with cloudy allegiances, training or ability.
An industry in crisis
Ironically, these dilemmas facing the newspaper industry come as its product has never been more sought-after. "The peculiar fact about the current crisis," writes The New YorkerThe New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
s economics writer James Surowiecki
James Surowiecki
James Michael Surowiecki is an American journalist. He is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he writes a regular column on business and finance called "The Financial Page".-Background:...
, "is that even as big papers have become less profitable they've arguably become more popular."
As the demand for news has exploded, so have consumers of the output of newspapers. (Both nytimes.com and washingtonpost.com, for instance, rank among the top 20 global news sites. But those consumers are now reading newspapers online for free, and although newspapers have been able to convert some of that viewership into ad dollars, it is a trickle compared to previous sources. At most newspapers, web advertising accounts for only 10–15% of revenues.
Some observers have compared the dilemma to that faced by the music industry. "What's going on in the news business is a lot like what's happening with music," said editor Paul Steiger
Paul Steiger
Paul Steiger was managing editor of The Wall Street Journal from 1991 until May 15, 2007.Steiger graduated from the Hun School of Princeton and attended Trumbull College at Yale University, where he was an editor of the Yale News and Review.He is currently editor at large for The Wall Street...
, a 43–year journalism veteran. Free distribution of content through the internet has caused "a total collapse of the business model."
The revenue streams that newspapers counted on to subsidize their product have changed irrevocably: in 2008, according to a study by the Pew Research Center
Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center is an American think tank organization based in Washington, D.C. that provides information on issues, attitudes and trends shaping the United States and the world. The Center and its projects receive funding from The Pew Charitable Trusts. In 1990, Donald S...
, more people in the United States got their news for free on the internet than paid for it by buying a newspaper or magazine. "With newspapers entering bankruptcy even as their audience grows, the threat is not just to the companies that own them, but also the news itself," observed writer David Carr
David Carr (journalist)
David Carr is an American journalist and author. He is a media and culture columnist for The New York Times. In his 2008 memoir, The Night of the Gun, he detailed his past experiences with cocaine addiction and includes interviews with people from his past, tackling his memoir as if he were...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
in a January 2009 column.
Newspaper markets across the world
The challenges facing the industry are not limited to the United States, or even English-speaking markets. Newspapers in Switzerland and the Netherlands, for instance, have lost half of their classified advertising to the internet. At its annual convention slated for May, 2009, in BarcelonaBarcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, the World Association of Newspapers
World Association of Newspapers
The World Association of Newspapers is a non-profit, non-governmental organization made up of 76 national newspaper associations, 12 news agencies, 10 regional press organisations and individual newspaper executives in 100 countries...
has titled the convention's subject "Newspapers Focus on Print & Advertising Revenues in Difficult Times."
In September 2008, the World Association of Newspapers called for regulators to block a proposed Google–Yahoo advertising partnership, calling it a threat to newspaper industry revenues worldwide. The WAN painted a stark picture of the threat posed to newspapers by the search engine giants. "Perhaps never in the history of newspaper publishing has a single, commercial entity threatened to exert this much control over the destiny of the press," said the Paris-based global newspaper organization of the proposed pact.
But there are bright spots in the world market for newspapers. At its 2008 convention, held in Gothenburg
Gothenburg
Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, the World Association of Newspapers released figures showing newspaper circulations and advertising had actually climbed in the previous year. Newspaper sales were up nearly 2.6% the previous year, and up 9.4% over the past five years. Free daily newspapers, noted the WAN, accounted for nearly 7% of all global newspaper circulation – and a whopping 23% of European newspaper circulation. Of the world's 100 best–selling daily newspapers, 74 are published in Asia – with China, Japan and India accounting for 62 of those.
Sales of newspapers rose in Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
, Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
and the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, but fell in other regions of the world, including Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
, where the proliferation of free dailies helped bolster overall circulation figures. While internet revenues are rising for the industry, the bulk of its web revenues come from a few areas, with most revenue generated in the United States, western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
and Asia–Pacific region.
Outlook for the future
Ultimately, the newspaper of the future may bear little resemblance to the newsprintNewsprint
Newsprint is a low-cost, non-archival paper most commonly used to print newspapers, and other publications and advertising material. It usually has an off-white cast and distinctive feel. It is designed for use in printing presses that employ a long web of paper rather than individual sheets of...
edition familiar to older readers. It may become a hybrid, part-print and part-internet, or perhaps eventually, as has happened with several newspapers, including the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is an online newspaper and former print newspaper covering Seattle, Washington, United States, and the surrounding metropolitan area...
, the Christian Science Monitor and the Ann Arbor News
Ann Arbor News
The Ann Arbor News was a newspaper serving Washtenaw and Livingston counties in Michigan. Published in Ann Arbor, under various names from 1835 to 2009, The News was part of Booth Newspapers, owned by Advance Publications Inc. The News was published in the afternoons Monday through Friday and in...
, internet only. In the meantime, the transition from the printed page to whatever comes next will likely be fraught with challenges, both for the newspaper industry and for its consumers.
"My expectation," wrote executive editor Bill Keller
Bill Keller
Bill Keller is a writer for the The New York Times, of which Keller was the executive editor from July 2003 until September 2011. On June 2, 2011, Keller announced that he would step down from the position to become a full-time writer...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
in January 2009, "is that for the foreseeable future our business will continue to be a mix of print and online journalism, with the growth online offsetting the (gradual, we hope) decline of print." The paper
Paper
Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....
in newspaper may go away, insist industry stalwarts, but the news will remain. "Paper is dying," said Nick Bilton, a technologist for The Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, "but it's just a device. Replacing it with pixels is a better experience." On September 8, 2010, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Chairman and Publisher of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, told an International Newsroom Summit in London that "We will stop printing the New York Times sometime in the future, date TBD."
But even as pixels replace print, and as newspapers undergo wrenching surgery, necessitating deep cutbacks, reallocation of remaining reporters, and the slashing of decades-old overhead, some observers remain optimistic. What emerges may be 'newspapers' unrecognizable to older readers, but which may be more timely, more topical and more flexible.
"Journalistic outlets will discover," wrote Michael Hirschorn in The Atlantic, "that the Web allows (okay, forces) them to concentrate on developing expertise in a narrower set of issues and interests, while helping journalists from other places and publications find new audiences." The 'newspaper' of the future, say Hirschorn and others, may resemble The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post is an American news website and content-aggregating blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, featuring liberal minded columnists and various news sources. The site offers coverage of politics, theology, media, business, entertainment, living, style,...
more than anything flung at today's stoops and driveways.
Much of that experimentation may happen in the world's fastest-growing newspaper markets. "The number of newspapers and their circulation has declined the world over except in India and China," according to former CEO Olivier Fleurot of The Financial Times. "The world is becoming more digital but technology has helped newspapers as much as the Internet." Making those technological changes work for them, instead of against them, will decide whether newspapers remain vital – or roadkill
Roadkill
Roadkill is an animal or animals that have been struck and killed by motor vehicles. In the United States of America, removal and disposal of animals struck by motor vehicles is usually the responsibility of the state's state trooper association or department of transportation.-History:During the...
on the information superhighway
Information superhighway
The information superhighway or infobahnwas a popular term used through the 1990s to refer to digital communication systems and the Internet telecommunications network. It is associated with United States Senator and later Vice-President Al Gore....
.
Journalism schools in the U.S.
The US journalism schools are also pressured to adapt to the changing landscape. At the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass CommunicationWalter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication
The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication , is one of the 24 independent schools at Arizona State University and named in honor of veteran broadcast journalist Walter Cronkite...
, part of Arizona State University
Arizona State University
Arizona State University is a public research university located in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area of the State of Arizona...
, a course on “The Business of Journalism” was retitled "“The Business and Future of Journalism” Introductory level courses at the Medill School of Journalism
Medill School of Journalism
The Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications is a constituent school of Northwestern University which offers both undergraduate and graduate programs. It has consistently been one of the top-ranked schools in Journalism in the United States...
at Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
include “Multimedia Storytelling” and “Introduction to 21st-Century Media.” As print journalism wanes, journalism schools are focusing on the internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
as a distribution medium, and are recalibrating courses to hone skills needed for jobs in the 21st century. Schools now include classes on computer programming as well as entrepreneurship. Rich Beckman, a professor at the University of Miami
University of Miami
The University of Miami is a private, non-sectarian university founded in 1925 with its main campus in Coral Gables, Florida, a medical campus in Miami city proper at Civic Center, and an oceanographic research facility on Virginia Key., the university currently enrolls 15,629 students in 12...
, said “There were deans all over the country saying, ‘We’re never going to teach computer programming in J-school.’ Well, now they are.” Centers for teaching new media innovation are being created at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
and the City University of New York
City University of New York
The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...
.
Although newspapers are struggling, and journalism jobs being eliminated, applications at the nation's journalism schools are increasing. The Columbia Journalism School
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is one of Columbia's graduate and professional schools. It offers three degree programs: Master of Science in journalism , Master of Arts in journalism and a Ph.D. in communications...
reports a 44% jump from 2008, and the Annenberg School for Communication reports a 20% increase. Other schools report similar increases.
External links
- Future of Newspapers, Walter Isaacson, Mort Zuckerman, Robert Thomson, Charlie Rose Show, charlierose.com
- A Web Site's For-Profit Approach to World News, The New York Times, March 22, 2009
- Dynamic World of Print Media Tracks newspaper closings, openings, mergers, format changes
- Newspaper Death Watch, newspaperdeathwatch.com
- Paper Cuts, tracks layoffs and buyouts at U.S. newspapers