The Web vs. Printed News: How can Newspapers keep up?
Jan 14, 2009 Newspapers, TownSync
A recent article in Seth Godin’s Blog discusses the dying realm of newspapers and inspired us to pass it on to our readers.
Newspapers are quickly losing steam along with the rest of the economy. The growing popularity of blog journalism and the birth of localized websites and search engines are further eroding newspaper revenue. Now anyone can become a journalist for their area, and people are beginning to put down the paper and pick up the computer or mobile phone. Godin discusses what people would miss if the newspapers were gone. He argues the sports, weather and reviews sections, the ads, inserts and coupons, and the editorials and op eds, will not be missed by many as their counterparts online are just as good if not better. “What’s left,” he says, is “local news, investigative journalism and intelligent coverage of national news.”
His issue is that when all local news comes from the blogosphere and there is a lack of what he calls “intelligent coverage” the government can do whatever it wants. He worries “about the quality of legislation when there isn’t a passionate, unbiased reporter there to explain it to us.”
He makes the argument that if it really is the valuable duty of the newspaper to have this unbiased reporting then we will find a way to pay for it in some way. “Newspapers took two cents of journalism and wrapped in ninety-eight cents of overhead and distraction.” His main argument is that the newspaper will be boiled down to their essential parts and those parts will be the only thing that can coexist with the blog/social-media world.
“The magic of the web, the reason you should care about this even if you don’t care about the news, is that when the marginal cost of something is free and when the time to deliver it is zero, the economics become magical. It’s like 6 divided by zero. Infinity.”
We do not consider TownSync to be a competitor with Newspapers, or even local journalists. We consider TownSync to be a place to learn more about your local town, meet people, visit business pages, discuss topics, and find new information sources – be it newspaper, blog journalism or what have you.
However, we are still selling ad space and attempting to capitalize on the local market, the same market that newspapers have been supplying and profiting from for decades. If anything else, we believe in supporting local businesses and the local economy, and with the current economic turmoil and the shift toward online consumption and news, print newspapers are struggling mightily. We have been working hard to develop our franchise program for newspapers, allowing them to purchase zip-codes in exchange for a % of revenue in their town. The hope is that our program will help papers expand their revenue base while providing us a media outlet in local markets we cannot reach otherwise.
You can read Seth Godin’s full post here.
January 14th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Don’t you feel that if you coupled your site with a digg like feature that the “national news” of relevance would rise to the top, and work in conjunction with the local news provided? In some sense isn’t all news local.
Take for instance a bus hanging off of I-5 in Seattle. Normally the Seattle bloggers/journalists would only be relevant to Seattle residents, but on that day their coverage would rise to the top of this digg feature and so people from all over the nation/world would follow their every post.
I’m sure there is more to this than what I am presenting here, but it seems to make sense?
January 16th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Also I wonder what Godin qualifies as “passionate and unbiased?” To me the people behind the blogs are only accountable to themselves and their readers (which they will have none of if they don’t produce quality material). So this can lead them to be even more unbiased than the reporters for the big weekly presses. Yes some “unintelligent” blogs will gain significant readership but you don’t see the smut at the checkout aisle going away anytime soon either. Free speech and free choice will always allow for this.
To me the power all belongs to the reader and the filters now. Anybody can start a blog, but no one will read it unless you actually have something to say. After you do produce quality work eventually the readers will find you, with the help of filters like your site, twitter, digg, stumbleupon, or outside.in to name a few.
I worry about hitching a ride with the newspapers. It could end up being something akin to catching a ride on the titanic. I believe you guys would be one of the ones to get on the lifeboats, but you may look back at some point and wonder if it was worth the trouble. I could certainly be wrong, and part of me hopes that I am.