In the fall of 2008, Judy Wolff, Chairman of the Board of Trustees that oversees the publication of The Christian Science Monitor, announced that the paper would be ending its daily print production and moving all output online. She explains:
"We plan to take advantage of the Internet in order to deliver the Monitor's journalism more quickly, to improve the Monitor's timeliness and relevance, and to increase revenue and reduce costs. We can do this by changing the way the Monitor reaches its readers."
The Monitor has been succesfully printing for over a century, so what has changed to force them online? The answer may lie in eMarketer's recent report on the ailing health of the newspaper industry.
eMarketer paints a grim picture for newspapers across North America; with classified advertising sales leeched by craigslist, the growing popularity of online journalism stealing readerships and the handicap of large overhead and distribution costs these new competitors operate without.
Outlets unwilling to take a bold step into the unknown, as the Monitor has done, are feeling the pain. In addition to the litany of job cuts described in the eMarketer report, last week saw the Atlanta Journal-Constitution cut nearly 200 jobs, and Paper Cuts (a new blog that intends to track industry job losses in 2009) is reporting similar losses at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Tulsa World.
Compounding the challenges described in the eMarketer document, figures within the industry have been aiming inflexible (and at times, antagonistic) rhetoric in the direction of their new online competition, deriding the internet as a bastion of journalistic dishonesty. Case in point, H.G. Bissinger's verbal ambush (language NSFW) of Deadspin editor Will Leitch on an episode of HBO's Costas Now from 2008.
The writing on the wall (and the message plainly laid out by eMarketer) should be clear. The audience newspapers have depended on for so long has changed, and as such, the industry must change with them. There will be a market for print journalism for many years to come, but likely not in the form it has previously held. Flexibility (as exercised by Ms. Wolff and the Monitor) will be necessary in order to see other journalistic institutions through the transition. The resistance Mr. Bissinger has shown online sports writers exemplifies the closed mindest that could serve as print journalism's death knell. Rather than attacking the new competition, it may be wiser to learn from their growing success; adopting the applicable methods of value addition that have helped them gain readership.
Interesting post - honestly, I'm running through all the blogs for 464, and this post catches the eye.
ReplyDeleteBut I ask you this: how would you start out as an online newspaper? Without the printed newspaper in the first place, nobody takes you seriously online - they question your reliability, resources, etc.
While they may be able to close down their print production, I contend that they would never be able to run their business without the original print material; the internet can increase fame exponentially, but starting out online only is increasingly difficult, (a concept I have been developing recently.