Arthur Sulzberger Compares Print Journalism To The Titanic

Daily Intel:

He thinks that physical newspapers will stick around as well. "The best analogy I can think of is -- have you ever heard of the Titanic Fallacy?" he asked. We hadn't. "What was the critical flaw to the Titanic?" We tried to answer: Poor construction? Not enough life boats? Crashing into stuff? "A captain trying to set a world speed record through an iceberg field?" he said, shaking his head. "Even if the Titanic came in safely to New York Harbor, it was still doomed," he said. "Twelve years earlier, two brothers invented the airplane."

Okay, so let us get this straight. The publisher of the New York Times is saying that getting into print journalism is like getting on the Titanic?

Read the whole story: Daily Intel

Comments

[atexasdem]

He's absolutely correct. News reporting is not dead it's just changing. Classified ad's are gone replaced by craigslist, "up to the minute" reporting is now on local news and the internet. In depth reporting is now internet news. People once would base their newspaper buying decision based on whether or not they agreed with that papers slant. Still happens. Now it's either CNN or Fox. It's liberal sites or conservative sites. The market is still there. We're all reading Huffingtonpost aren't we? Traditional newspapers have to reinvent themselves. Find new sources of revenue. The basic idea and need hasn't changed. It's just the technology and how to adapt to it.

[ReelBusy]

Like the movie, I guess we know how this story ends.

[GrizzlyBowman]

I have the following issues with print journalism:

It's as slow as the telegraph compared to online and cable news.

The newspaper format makes it extremely annoying to read. Hint: Magazine format. It's not 18 ft w x 36 ft h. The pages stay together. Magazines have these omg dubya tee eff inventions called glue and staples.

I'm in college and I often use news reports as sources. It's simply much easier to quote with CTRL+C CTRL+V followed by a citation than to try to fit an opened newspaper through the door, prop it up against the wall, then walk to the other side of the room to copy down the words so my eyes don't get swallowed.

Print journalism costs too much.

Family Circus.

Bad Titanic analogies.

[toochie]

That what happens when you scream that you are King of the World.

[Plissken]

I dont want to hear that my B.A. is in print journalism­... although I have never found a job that pays enough to live, so I cant work in that field.

[atexasdem]

A career in journalism is a great thing. We need it desperatly. A free press is vital to our democracy. A well written article, an investigation, an opinion by someone respected. With cable and the internet everything thing changed. More in depth reporting. More instant news. More opinionated reporting. Journalism isn't dead. It's a whole new world and a revolution in journalism however.

[Whitley2009]

Fanned. I agree with everything you say. One thing that used to amuse me was the telemarketing calls I would get at my office or home here in the Deep South. The feminine voice always asked if I got the New York Times Sunday Edition at my home. When I replied that I did not live in New York City, I was met with an attitude that I was not cultured or in tune with American society. I used to play with these people by telling them I did read the Atlanta, Charlotte and Columbia newspapers and that was enough. They would counter with their travel section, their arts section, etc. Finally, I had to close the conversation with the statement that I do not LUV New York City or the New York Times.

The point is that the New York Times was doing exactly what you mentioned, they were selling a hodge-podge of information but da.mn little comprehensive news reporting. They were really selling a magazine, not a news organ. I will shed no tears when it once again becomes a local newspaper which serves the people of New York City, and does not attempt to inundate the world with gibbering nonsense about that town.

[Aesthete]

I've never lived anywhere near New York, but I liked the New York Times better when it was more of a local newspaper for New York. It lost something when it went "national.­" Living in the Midwest, I was given as a high school graduation gift from my father a subscription to the New York Sunday Times, which arrived out here on Wednesdays, but it was worth the wait. I loved all the wedding and birth announcements and other news of people I did not know and would never meet plus all the ads from Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman, even though I would never shop there. In other words, it gave me a real picture of New York City. When things changed, I could not even get the New York edition of the paper out here. I did not like the "Midwest" edition of the New York Times---I could already get regional news from papers more indigenous to my part of the country.

[JerryLevy]

The Wall Street Journal is print journalism and is thriving because it has excellent content. While the NYT is the equivalent of the Titanic, it is not because it is print journalism, it is because the content is extremely biased and irrelevant. People are hungry for objective reporting and diversified content. You get that in the WSJ.

[xlntcat]

The WSJ along with all of News Corp has been on very hard times. Where have you been? The losses were staggering and they have yet to recover.

[lukebenward]

That was a very Republican thing for you to say, Jer. ;-)

[mom2luke]

doesn't WSJ allow its online content to be viewed by subscribers? That used to be the case...the­y saw the writing on wall if they gave it away for free they'd canibalize their revenues..­. other newspapers weren't so forward thinking.
wash post readership has never been higher...i­t's just that ppl are reading it ON THE WEB ... newspapers need to get together and charge readers a fee _as part of their internet connection charge_...­it's an inelastic demand curve and good content is worth paying for. otherwise we'll all suffer w/out objective investigative reporting as more and more newspapers go bankrupt..­.broadcast journalism can't provide the detail newspapers­/magazines do.

[atexasdem]

I notice your reading the huffingtonpost. Millions of others are too. Huffingtonpost needs money to survive but your reading it for free. I'll bet you also read other news and opinion websites. I'll bet you don't pay for any of them.
Newspapers aren't dead. The desire for news isn't dead. There is however a basic revolution going on in news and opinion reporting. In any revolution you must adapt to the new reality or die.

[flossophy]

I dunno, Arthur... You've seen this coming for, oh, several decades now.

Perhaps it's just human evolution or social darwinism or something. Survival of the fittest I guess.

Or perhaps people don't like your news product.

[Name Not In Use]

If you are selling information and your business model includes "cut down a tree" you are going out of business - sooner rather than later. End of story.

[Whitley2009]

Agreed. Spot on.

[lmvd3]

Geez. Keep talking that way and NO ONE will begin a new subscription. You are ushering in your own demise by this constant death talk. Those of us who are holding onto the ship via subscriptions with you NYT folks, do NOT appreciate the final gutting process by the editor himself. Get a brain, for Pete's sake!!! Intelligent, you are not, sir.

[NewLiberals]

Ahhh, aren't there still a whole lot of cruise ships around today? I realize that passenger ships don't carry the bulk of folks crossing the Atlantic but they still carry a bunch of folks in the Caribbean and to Alaska.

Maybe newspapers will continue just not as we see them today.

[larry278]

Pooch Sulzberger is sadly mistaken print on paper newspapers are in a situation like passanger ships were in in 1966 when trans-Atla­ntic/Pacif­ic jets beat ships at transporting people quickly & cheaply. The NYT is the Queen Elizabeth. The web is/are a fleet of jumbo jets. The NYT & other papers have lost circulation & advertising to the web. Newspapers will have to find & fill a niche market to barely survive. It's difficult to see the NYT/Queen Elizabeth morphing into a Carnival Cruise ship. The NYT's market is gone. The web occupies the news niche the NYT had filled.
Pooch call Sr Slim to see if he will loan you money to keep the NYT alive. Keep downsizing. Proceed with the plans to print shoppers. You aren't going to be selling many papers. Live with it.

[aspertame2]

Just wait and see what ultimately happens to network TV. There's a quiet (from the general public's POV) little tivo/Hulu/­Fancast/Ne­tflix/NetN­eutrality war brewing out there. Tina Fey recently compared being on network TV today to the last days of vaudeville, but I think that goes for cable, too. Someone will still produce shows and make money, but from here to whatever replaces traditional cable/sate­llite/netw­orks, we'll see lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

[colah]

To everybody lamenting the loss of print journalism, you need to pull out your vinyl recordings of the Moody Blues, drop a couple sugar cubes and realize that you are a complete dinosaur.

[Jay Lewis]

In every generation in American, there is encoded within our collective unconscious a pressing need for every succeeding generation to respectfully but decisively move on--move on to grounds different and separate.

That is why every generation generates its own music; it is why your music is disliked by your parents, as was their music disliked by theirs, and so on.

There are some rare exceptions to this, but those embracing their parents' music are also very likely to be seen sitting on velvet chairs visiting blue hairs while their peers are out howling. You know the type--kissed up unquestioningly from their beginning, and disagreed with their elders but rarely. Were they not so perfunctory and predictable in their obsequious genuflections, they might be critiqued for their lack of social skills and general lack of trust of their peer groups.

It is important in the issue of print journalism though to be not generationally trigger-happy. Print journalism is (was) built on journalistic principle. True, in the physical, it exists mostly in journalism classrooms at college, but this recent binge of abandonment of journalistic principle may be simply a low sling on the charts, the journalistic calendar.

The Net, on the other hands, has no such thing. And before it developes one, the corporations will move decisively to purchase congressmen to reign in the Net as it prospers them.

Don't glibly throw the baby out with the bathwater, just to be hip to your times.

[Name Not In Use]

OK.

[xlntcat]

I am lamenting the death of honest journalism across the board. Ethical journalism is past history.

[Sirenissima]

I totally agree. No more honesty nor ethics. It's all about the money.
I'm a journalist, by the way.

[MichaelMcKLA]

blub...blu­b...blub

Amid the screeching sounds of buckling steel.