Wait, I've Got Another Idea—Let's Have a Bake Sale!

The newspaper business is abuzz about an essay by Poynter Institute Senior Scholar Roy Peter Clark, who proposes that a key step to saving the newspaper industry is to get journalists to actually read newspapers themselves. But wait, that's not all: Clark is very specific: "It is your duty as a journalist and a citizen to read the newspaper —emphasis on paper, not pixels."

Oh, please.

But it gets even worse. This preposterous suggestion has ignited a firestorm of comments on the usually placid Poynter site (more than 60, at last count, which is a lot for Poynter), and what's really scary is how many of the respondents actually agree with Clark. They even boast about their own print newspaper reading habits, including that old chestnut about how holding a newspaper is such a great experience that you can't replicate online, and thus somehow sacred.

Good lord. To borrow a great coinage from Howard Owens, the "newsroom turtles" are out in force here, clinging to the idea that newsprint is somehow the perfect way to present news, and stubbornly believing that the print product will survive if we just wish it to be so.

Reality is different, and Luddites like Clark are falling into the same classic trap--widely taught in business schools--that the railroads fell into a century ago: Faced with competiton from upstart airlines and automobiles, railroads clung to their romantic view of themselves as train operators, without understanding that they were actually in the transportation business, and that the mode of transportation was secondary. You know the rest of that story.

Those like Clark who confusedly and romantically think that newspapers are in the "paper" business, and not in the "news" business, are on the road to the same fate. Internet, RSS, video, iPhone, Flash, smoke signals, carrier pigeons—hell, it doesn't matter how you get the story out. Just make sure you know you're in the journalism business, not in the printing business, and accept that the printed newspaper may soon be a thing of the past.

There are terrific responses to Clark's piece from Steve Yelvington, Craig Stoltz, K. Paul Mallasch and many others, and don't miss Steve Outing's excellent response in the comments on Clark's post.

What's interesting about many of these responses is how many of these smart, middle-aged people reveal that they generally don't read print newspapers anymore themselves. I'm another—online is simply a better medium for most news and journalism, and it doesn't kill a few forests of trees every day to do it. Electronic news is becoming increasingly portable, and will be more so in the years to come, further eroding the one of the newspaper's last advantages.

Stop clinging to the printed newspaper and start thinking about how to work with new technologies to publish and distribute the news and journalism that is so important. Don't be a turtle!

Comments

[Roy Peter Clark]

Hey, Mark. So far today I've been called a Luddite, troll, pompous windbag, and a turtle.
To quote my pal Shylock: "When you prick us, do we not bleed?" No, I'm not calling you or your technophilic pals pricks. But I do want to challenge one important notion in your post. I think newspapers are not in the news or information business. To quote a line from the great Jay Rosen. I think we are in the identity business. A good newspaper, like the St. Pete Times, provides one way to establish and maintain membership in a terrestrial community, not an extraterrestrial one such as this. It doesn't have to be a perfect map. But if I'm going to live HERE as a resident, citizen, neighbor, consumer, employee, parent I need stuff that the newspaper provides that, so far, the internet cannot provide as well. Let's say Paper X becomes Digital X in 10 years. Will Digital X provide the intensely local service I need to live in a real and not virtual world? And will it make enough money to create the news capacity needed to do the job. I hope so, but I fear not. Cheers.

[Mark Potts]

Thanks, Roy, and thanks for being a good sport about taking criticism of your essay.

I'm going to both agree and disagree with your comment. I have posted repeatedly my belief that newspapers' most important franchise is local, both in journalism and advertising. THAT'S what they should be defending, not the paper it's printed on. Indeed, I don't understand why print is required to fulfill that mission. I can just as easily find out about local goings-on online (better, in many ways, because it's searchable) as I can in print.

You ask, "Will Digital X provide the intensely local service I need to live in a real and not virtual world?" Well, you're asking that of the guy who created Backfence, is now consulting to newspaper companies about hyperlocal projects of all stripes, and working on yet another (non-print!) startup focused on local information, advertising and, to use your word, identity. So I think my answer to that question is self-evident: Of course!

[Wendy Withers]

I agree with Roy Peter Clark in that reading a physical newspaper is a much nicer experience than reading an online newspaper. And, I'm not an outdated troll hiding under a bridge somewhere lamenting the collapse of the printing business; I'm a 25-year-old college student who subscribes to news feeds and receives internet service on her phone. I've been reading at least one local paper every single day since I was in elementary school; besides my newsfeeds and Nexis Lexis, I prefer to get the news in a physical form in my hands. I hate reading online content. It hurts my eyes and elicits no tactile response from me. Does that mean I'm behind the times? No, it simply means I want options for my news reading experience. As long as the news exists in printed form, I will pick up a copy and continue to supplement good local coverage with the on-the-spot coverage the internet provides. And, I will especially continue to subscribe to blogs like yours and Roy Peter Clark's to keep abreast of other insider opinions.

[D. B. Scott]

You're both wrong, I think. Newspapers, indeed all publications (to use a term that could use some updating) are in the business of renting readers to advertisers. The end users don't pay the freight for either traditional publications or internet ones. Long ago, we gave up being in the business of selling news and information to readers in favour of virtually giving information to readers, coralling them as an "audience" and then renting access to them. So the delivery mechanism is relatively unimportant, as long as the audience is intact. And if you had a choice between reaching readers instantly and often or in a cumbersome way (as the delivery of the traditional daily newspaper has now become -- again, relatively to the internet) why wouldn't you? There may (and probably always will be)portions of the audience that prefer the old-fashioned way (people who still love train travel) and people who want it fast and furious (those who fly). So most publishers will, for the foreseeable future, probably have to serve two audiences or more.

[kpaul.mallasch]

Hey, Mark, you have, imho, the best headline out of all the responses I've read so far. ;)

-kpaul

[Rocky]

Roy,

I don't know where to start. Newspapers -- especially the major metros -- have failed miserably at building community. In print or online.

Every week, I get an email from Arlington County that gives me an update on what's happening in Arlington. I get an email from the police department that runsdown crime in my area. This information is way more relevant in terms of community than the Washington Post puts out.

Why is this? Partly because journalism education tells everyone that local events, police reporting, etc. are things that you do to pay your dues. You're not a real journalist unless you're covering the president. And the pay for the reporters in these jobs reflects it.

Web sites by non-newspaper folks have done a way better job of building community. See craigslist, Yelp and facebook. Compare the richness of Yelp's personality pages for reviewers with what you find on the Washington Post Web site. It's night and day. (And the Post is one of the stars in the newspaper business.)

[Rocky]

Mark,

Roy scored some points for the newspaper industry in the which-media-business-is-more-screwed-up contest.

See my piece comparing newspapers, movies, tv and music:
http://blog.agrawals.org/2007/10/13/whats-the-most-screwed-up-media-business/

[Mary Specht]

Pieces like Roy's aren't productive. Why waste time encouraging people to cling to a sinking business model?

At least he's stoked a good debate. Thanks, Mark, for weighing in, as always.

[John Kelly]

I couldn't help weighing in myself:
www.voxford.blogspot.com