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The Slow, Sad Death of Newspapers

The Hearst Corp. made a huge announcement yesterday—quite a shocking one for those of us in the Bay Area. According to execs, The San Francisco Chronicle is on the verge of total collapse and is at risk of disappearing.

Hearst said that if the savings cannot be accomplished ‘quickly,’ the company will seek a buyer, and if none comes forward, it will close The Chronicle. The Chronicle lost more than $50 million in 2008 and is on a pace to lose more than that this year.

Some Web purists may be saying, “Good riddance! Newspapers are a product whose time has passed. They use up paper, are inky and messy, and they were simply arrogant with their high-priced advertising.” Hold on folks. Let’s really think about this.

• Newspapers (and other ‘old–school’ media channels) still play an essential role in the online/offline mix, as they provide the root content that thousands of bloggers and aggregate sites pull into their site and comment on, mash–up, etc.
• Newspapers maintain professional journalistic standards that are still very much needed in this world. Now more than ever, when hundreds of different versions of a story—true and untrue—can propagate throughout the Internet instantaneously, we need a reliable source to go to. Here’s a shocker—most bloggers aren’t journalists and don’t abide by journalism standards of professionalism when reporting a story.
• Newspapers are a “centralized channel” through which we can disseminate information to a large audience. The online world is splitting this channel into a thousand tiny pieces—blogs, Web sites, aggregate sites, social media profiles and more—many of which are obscure and hard to find. How do you reach a mass local or regional audience? There isn’t yet a single blog site or Web site that can reach the depth and width of people that a newspaper can–especially on a local level.
• Newspaper stories are still the most credible in the eyes of the public. The impact of having a story in the paper is huge compared to having something on a blog site or Web site. In fact, it is that story in the paper that is often pushed out through the online channels.
• The death of newspapers (along with radio and television) means the age–old PR relationship between companies and the media is breaking down. Some may say this is a good thing, but hold on. Like it or not, PR serves a valuable role in pushing out information on what’s new and what’s happening. Reporters and PR people have always had a love/hate relationship, but it was one that was mutually beneficial. Most bloggers don’t understand that value of this or simple don’t care because they’re blogging from a very self–focused perspective. That’s bad, in my opinion. Everyone benefits when there is a strong channel for pushing out information. No one benefits when that channel closes down.

To read about what’s happening with The Chronicle, click here.