The Elephant in the Room

Joe Strupp generally does a good job covering trends in the newspaper industry for Editor & Publisher. But his compilation of the top 10 newspaper industry stories of 2006 has a glaring omission—and it should be at the top of the list. In fact, it's so glaring that it's hard to see how Strupp missed it.

Strupp's pick for the top development affecting the newspaper industry in 2006: "The Web Comes of Age." Uh, it did? In 2006? Nope. Certainly not in the rest of the wired (and wireless) world, where the Web came of age years ago—and has been pounding newspapers ever since. And it's not even true in the newspaper industry, where most of the Web trends that Strupp heralds (24/7 Web newsrooms, substantial gains in online audiences) have been happening for years. I'd argue that there are a LOT of things newspapers still aren't doing on the Web (Citizens' media? Social networking? Google mapping? Liberal use of video?), but that's not the problem with Strupp's No. 1 pick.

No, the problem with Strupp's list is that the biggest story of the year in the newspaper industry is that everybody in the industry seems finally to have figured out that the industry is in very serious trouble, and the upheaval that's resulted from that realization in the past year has been nothing short of massive. Hints of that upheaval, in fact, are all over Strupp's list: The dissolution of Knight Ridder, continued job cuts, Tribune Co.'s problems—all of those are symptoms of the greater story, which is an overall decline in the industry's fortunes. Just look at the daily list of industry headlines on Romenesko—lately, it seems, they're almost all bad economic news. (And there's another clue today, in Alan Mutter's excellent analysis of Borrell stats that show that internet recruitment advertising spending has surpassed print spending.)

Indeed, many smart people who follow the newspaper industry believe that the situation reached an inflection point in the past year. The circulation declines are accelerating, advertising losses are accelerating, and that's what driving the upheaval that's rocked so many newspapers and media companies.

That's not going to end with the playing of "Auld Lang Syne." We're going to see more of the same—much more—in 2007 and beyond. That's the biggest newspaper industry story of 2006: By all indications, the industry has reached the end game. And with major structural and philosophical changes (sure to be the biggest industry stories of 2007, 2008 and beyond) it's going to be ugly. In fact, it already is.

Comments

[Gur]

And along these lines ... I just skimmed through Time magazine (having been named its Person of the Year - and all) and read this piece of wizardry: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1565543,00.html
Summary: a magazine thinks newspapers are alive and kickin'. Go figure!

[Mark Potts]

Thanks, Gur. Talk about whistling past the graveyard! I need to post at greater length on this, but anybody who thinks private local ownership is the magic answer should look at the Philadelphia Inquirer, whose new local owner is discovering that a heavy debt load, tough union contracts and the standard newspaper challenges can eat up that lovely cash flow rather quickly.

[Dave Porreca]

Mark,

Excellent points, but aren't you and Joe Strupp saying essentially the same thing, just approaching it from different angles? To me, the reason Joe can say this was the year the Web came of age is because people in the business finally recognized, as you point out, that the old model is irreparably broken. My point, I guess, is that you and Joe aren't really at odds.

Dave Porreca

[Jay Rosen]

Mark: I agree with your analysis. I disagree with Strupp. I don't think he has a handle on this one.

But if you do that post on private ownership not being the magic answer, be advised: I have collected a bunch of columns making that very point, and every single one of them uses some variation of the phrase you used--local ownership as a "panacea," or "magic answer"--without even trying to find someone who said it was. No quotes, ever. No names. Just phantoms. I have even written the journalists involved asking them, "who said panacea?" because what I heard people saying about local ownership was: "worth a try."

You write... "anybody who thinks private local ownership is the magic answer.." Please, if you write that post, find these people who have engaged in magical thinking and panacea talk. Personally, I don't think they exist, only their debunkers do.

Now if you are talking about people who hoped local ownership might this time work out better than Wall Street domination had... well, sure. Lots of them around. But in the commentary I have collected from them, they usually cautioned against the panacea view.

Here's something I wrotye about it:

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2006/07/14/free_fbs.html

And here's the kind of "no panacea" colummn I meant:

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2006/10/27/local_ownership_isnt_cure_all_for_newspapers/