Future-of-newspapers: Difference between revisions
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She says that undermines democracy. The Missouri Press Association, she said, is "fighting back" by developing messages about the importance of the role of newspapers. She references the [http://www.newspaperproject.org NewspaperProject.org] project. | She says that undermines democracy. The Missouri Press Association, she said, is "fighting back" by developing messages about the importance of the role of newspapers. She references the [http://www.newspaperproject.org NewspaperProject.org] project. | ||
"I think that is going to become a robust discussion sooner rather than later. | She says there is an emerging discussion about whether news organizations should charge for content. "I think that is going to become a robust discussion sooner rather than later," she says. | ||
Revision as of 18:28, 23 February 2009
The Future of Newspapers: Another perspective
Notes by Bill Densmore on a presentation Feb. 23, 2009 at the Fred Smith Forum of the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, Missouri School of Journalism, Columbia, Mo. organized by the Missouri Press Association. Presenters are Doug Crews and Vicki Russell.
Doug Crews, Missouri Press Association executive director, opens by reading an op-ed piece from a small Missouri newspaper about the financial challenge faced by U.S. newspapers -- written in June of 1980. "We didn't have the Internet in June of 1980 . . . but we've sort of been going through highs and lows in the newspaper industry," said Crews.
He introduces Vicki Russell, associate publisher of the Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune, who leads a discussion. "If we keep reporting that newspapers are dying, then that will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. But there is no reason for that to happen," she says, "We've got to keep some of the news about these things in perspective."
She says many newspapers are doing just fine. So what are the distinctions betwen those doing well and those not doing well. They include, she says:
- Market size
- Corporate debt
- Economy
- Internet
- Readership
"I will expect more newspapers to be filing for bankruptcy before we work our way through this economic crisis," she says. But one positive outcome may be the potential for more and more local ownership [Russell's paper is family owned]. "I will make a prediction that there will be newspapers started up to replace some of the ones that are going out of business."
She says there are predictions that half of the nation's radio stations will be out of business by the end of the year. So she sees the problem as not limited to newspapers.
She says the smaller the market, the better the position of the newspaper which serves it relative to what is going on among major metro dailies. She provides demographic data about The Tribune's readership, which she says is growing -- some 5,000 more adults read the paper today than a year ago, the research shows. About 64 percent of Boone County adults (about 74,500 out of 117,00) read The Tribune in a given week.
Can the web replace the print product?
Russell isn't ready to "buy into" the notion that the web can "entirely replace the print product."
She says the conventional wisdom now is that young people don't read -- or shouldn't read -- newspaper, and a pervasive message that "newspapers are dead" is filtering down to the public and is heard on the street even by publishers of healthy weeklies.
She says that undermines democracy. The Missouri Press Association, she said, is "fighting back" by developing messages about the importance of the role of newspapers. She references the NewspaperProject.org project.
She says there is an emerging discussion about whether news organizations should charge for content. "I think that is going to become a robust discussion sooner rather than later," she says.
