There’s much crying about the fall of the major metropolitan newspaper, a process hastened by the severe economic recession. There are many reasons cited, from the rise of new media to poor change management. Yet one can see a similar pattern in recent history, when another mass market product — the department store — also succumbed to the pressures of smaller, more nimble competitors (Original Image: Hamburgers 1920 by army.arch).
For department stores, many chains found their death in a trojan horse — the mall. With the rise of the mall, department stores were asked to anchor these megaplexes. But inside the smaller stores were more nimble, better competitors who specialized in deeper lines of products. Electronics, women’s shoes, hardware, whatever it was, from big box to pretzels chains took shoppers away from many department stores.
Ironically, like the mall, the Internet was supposed to be the future of newspapers. But for some reason the 90s passed and the opportunity was never realized. Perhaps that crack known as print advertising was just too good to give up. Or maybe, change was really that hard.
At the same time, technology enabled easy publishing in the form of weblogs and new influentials rose to the fore. The best voices offered new writing styles and ways of thinking about specialized topics. Often these topics were not covered by the mass newspaper or general industry trade. Social networks like Twitter, StumbleUpon and Digg hasten the speed and widespread delivery of these specialized content creators. Within years, social media voices rose to challenge and endanger the traditional news model.
Often the quality of these voices has been called in question when compared to older, more traditional media. The truth about blogs and other forms of new media: The cream of the crop is really good. They have standards of excellence, and the voices are often subject matter experts, even former journalists.
Considering the larger dynamics at play, newspapers that are suffering probably should be. Like their industrial era department store counterparts, they are slow and ineffective. The product is often lacking in relevance.
When was the last time a metropolitan newspaper had a consistently relevant business section for the region day in day out? Or for that matter, when did each individual reader really want all of those sections? On the Internet, we can choose from the best voices in each of our own subject matter interests. Even if it is stamp collecting.
Just like the best department stores, the best newspapers will survive this time. But they will likely need to evolve to some extent and meet the times. And with the economic waters puncturing so many hulls, newspaper veterans may have no choice but to choose a new course.
Hmmm. Geoff, I believe that you are placing too much credit the hands of the so-called, undefined ‘cream of the crop.’ As a writer, I don’t stumble across a lot of quality in the blogsophere nor do I believe that bloggers can replace traditional journalism. Rather, I look at the evolution of news this way: newspapers will continue to have a role highlighting the top stories; if you want the deeper dive, you can utilize the overview to then go and select the place to find a more detailed analysis. But to depend on bloggers for quality – without any oversight – nah. I’ll take the New York Times anyday.
Liz: Please tell me how the Rocky Moutnain News or Boston Globe’s political section can possibly compete with the Huffington Post.Neither can on quality, depth or intelligence. Technology news from the Washington Post versus TechCrunch? That’s the point. There’s better quality out there than what the newspapers have to offer.
I just wrote about this last Friday.The quality of a newspaper anymore, is or was always directly proportional to the number of advertisers. Sometimes I wondered what was more important to some papers-quality journalism or the number of inserts. Pull one or the other out and what’s left.
I agree they need to evolve. The old business model is broken. Look at the Globe-their demise defined as much by the times as it is/was by a Union desperately trying to cling to that old business model and not willing to redefine themselves and their roles.
I’m thinking the days of the paper coming out every day, may be over, if some want to survive. But more importantly, the days of Unions holding companies feet to the fire to get what they want, have to end.
As with all media evolution will occur and in this particular case trees will be the biggest beneficiary.
Love the accurate comparison. Nimbler, smaller ships with less overhead can cater to unique audience to receive maximum benefit. We are getting more and more specialized as a culture…what other one size fits all model will be the next to fall?
The newspaper industry isn’t crumbling because of quality. Revenue from advertising has dried up forcing change across the industry. Quality is insignificant, and in my opinion, it always has been when it comes to newspapers and traditional news outlets. There was an interesting article last week that talked about the rise of hyperlocal online news.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/05/01/future.online.news.hyperlocal/
Here I feel we find relative quality. Niche selective and nimble news may be what survives and thrives.
That’s the Press, Baby,”> by David Sullivan, includes this tagline: The future of newspapers, copy editing, and how it all relates, like everything else, to department stores