Decline of newspapers calls for innovative thinking

A former colleague and I were talking recently about the decline of newspapers. Newspapers across the country are struggling. No longer "a license to print money" (as was enviously said of newspapers' money-making potential years ago), newspapers are cutting back or closing their doors. Stock in McClatchy, one of the biggest newspaper companies, had fallen below $1 a share recently.

"What's going to happen," my former colleague asked, "when people suddenly realize there's no one there to provide the news they want and need?" The problem is not just with newspapers. All news organizations are suffering. Television is no longer the cash cow it once was. The Internet is making it harder for all news organizations to charge for advertising and to charge for access to information, which is costly and time-consuming to collect.

But if newspapers — and to a lesser extent, television news — is driven out of business by consumers' refusal to pay the freight of news gathering, what then? Will Americans be oblivious to the situation in Iraq? To the fall of stock prices on Wall Street? To the terrorist attacks in Mumbai? To the Israeli invasion of Gaza? To hurricanes approaching the Atlantic coast? To the presidential primaries and debates? To local elections? To decisions by city councils and local school boards?

Democracy depends upon a well-informed citizenry. Blogs (like this one) and bloggers can't be expected to provide the objective reporting of diverse and complex information that is essential for prudent decision-making. Most of what is in blogs (including this one) is personal opinion, and often not well-informed at that. Without newspapers, the Associated Press, Reuters and other worldwide news organizations will not have the cash flow to support the costly foreign bureaus and Washington and state capitol reporters necessary for well-informed news content.

Advertisers are fleeing newspapers for "new media," but they have been unwilling to pay prices for Internet advertising comparable to what they were paying for print. Classified advertising is especially hard-hit by online services such as Craigslist and eBay. So newspapers' cash flow is down, even for those with a strong Web presence and plenty of online ads. Newspapers need a new paradigm (to use an overused and over-trendy word). They need a new revenue stream, a new source of cash flow. What can it be? Subscribers are probably not willing to pay what it really costs to produce a newspaper. Subscription and single-copy prices have always been a "loss leader" for newspapers. Advertising has always paid the freight for modern newspapers.

My wife is intrigued with the idea of membership subscriptions of the sort that keeps National Public Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting afloat. Public-spirited, deeply interested individuals listeners/viewers, foundations and corporations subsidize the costs of NPR and CPB so that these services can be provided essentially free to the masses. Getting the volume of money necessary to support a newspaper would be a huge hurdle. I don't think it could be done.

A New York Times column proposes a different kind of solution: Newspapers that would follow the iTunes business plan. Having subscribers download newspaper content to computers, cell phones and similar digital devices would save newspapers the considerable costs of printing and distributing their product. This has been the mythical future of newspapers since I was in Journalism School 40 years ago. It hasn't happened yet and might never fully replace the printed newspaper tossed in the driveway.

This "solution" doesn't address the fundamental issue of revenue, however. Newspapers have extended their reach into such ventures as telephone books and "niche products," but many of these have a dim future at best. The traditional phone book, once a cash cow for the monopoly phone companies and now a cash cow for any number of private vendors (including newspapers), seems especially doomed. Online phone directories are already widely used. Some cell phones can automatically search for numbers of businesses or individuals. And the annual phone book has never been especially popular: It's a bother to keep and to read. Diversifying into other print products does not appear to hold much promise for newspapers.

To survive, newspapers are going to have to find a new revenue source, or people who care about the news — and about their community, the nation and the world — will have to come to the realization that newspapers are essential to a well-informed populace, without which democracy cannot long survive. And they'll have to be willing to pay for news or push advertisers back into print.