No Newspapers at Any Price

Warren Buffett would not buy newspapers "at any price." According to PaidContent, Buffett said today:

The current environment is accentuating problem in newspapers -- but it's not the basic cause. Charlie and I read five a day. We'll never give them up. We would not buy them at any price. They have the possibility of going to unending losses. They were essential to the public 20 years ago. Their pricing power was essential with customer. They lost the essential nature. The erosion has accelerated dramatically. They were only essential to advertiser as long as essential to reader. No one liked buying ads in the paper -- it's just that they worked. I don't see anything on the horizon that causes that erosion to end.

This from the owner of the Buffalo News and a board member of the Washington Post Company.

And they call me a doomsayer.

Now add to this what Jeffrey Cole of USC said in his latest valuable report:

We're clearly now seeing a path to the end of the printed daily newspapers -- a trend that is escalating much faster than we had anticipated," Cole said. "The decline of newspapers is happening at a pace they never could have anticipated. Their cushion is gone, and only those papers that can move decisively to the Web will survive.

I wondered whether Vanishing Newspaper author Philip Meyer -- who's often quoted as predicting the last paper rolling off a press in 2043 (though as you'll see, that's not quite right) -- had updated his prognostication. Last year, he wrote this:

Judging by the Google alerts the book's title has accumulated since then, readers took away the wrong message.

This reference from The Economist is typical: "In his book 'The Vanishing Newspaper,' Philip Meyer calculates that the first quarter of 2043 will be the moment when newsprint dies in America as the last exhausted reader tosses aside the last crumpled edition."

That's a clever image, and it is true that extrapolating the recent linear decline in everyday readership would show a zero point in April 2043. But newspaper publishers are not so relentlessly stubborn that we can expect them to continue churning out papers until there is only one reader left. The industry would lose critical mass and collapse long before then.

Moreover, straight-line trends do not continue indefinitely. Nature throws us curves.

Meyer's superb piece was written probably just before last fall's crash -- one helluva curve.

Add this all up and it keeps getting clearer and clearer: It makes less sense every day to try to preserve and protect - to invest in - what is obviously a failing model. Every day that papers keep printing is a day that they haven't reinvented themselves for a new reality.

The same can be said of the auto industry, retail, banking, education, and many other sectors of society. But those will be the subjects of upcoming posts (and maybe more).

This isn't doomsaying, though. It is a reality check. It is nothing more than observing what is obviously and inexorably happening in the economy and society. The insane response to this change is to resist it and mourn it. The sane response is to find the opportunity in it.

Don't bail. Build.

It may be too late for newspapers to find that opportunity. But others will find it. That's not doomsaying. That's optimism.

 

 

Follow Jeff Jarvis on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jeffjarvis

Comments

[UKOH]

The concept that is last century is using the printed page as the distribution mechanism - for that is what it is - rather than the newspaper itself.

There is a need for quality, investigative journalism that only newspapers can effectively cater to. Change the distribution mechanism to online - with a .pdf version for those who want to print and read away from their computers. Once newspapers understand they are really trying to defend an old-fashioned distribution mechanism - nothing more - they have the potential to be fine.

"Potential". The reason is they will have to buck the "everything for free" habit of the internet. Why do people who do not think twice about paying for printed paper baulk at paying even a few cents for quality newspapers via the internet? That is the mind set that needs to be changed.

[JohnnyWalkerBlueLabel]

Hmmm... The Wall Street Journal does not seem to have a problem. Must be the realistic editorial page and pro-business slant.

[MichaelLittleBig]

The newspapers did it to themselves. In Cleveland Ohio the Plain Dealer refused my suggestions for years to make their paper more inter active with their readers. I ask them to post all the letters to the editors. I ask them to again become the champion for those who have no voice. I pleaded with them
to give their citizens a voice.
Sadly it is just a matter of time before they close their doors. The publisher and the editor killed their own paper with their know it all egos.

[WarSkeptic]

You say that they need to stop printing to make money,
But how do you come to that conclusion.

Are there any daily internet papers that make money? I don't think so
And as far as bloggers, they don't normally get paid. So I'm not clear on what profit model you think is better?

[Mari X]

The dearth of comments on Mr. Jarvis' article today says it all:

Newspaper? What's a newspaper?

Methinks the beast is already decomposin'. So long, old Ink! Hello, bibble-babble all the livelong, er....
"newscycle"? Sounds awkward for what the internet does, already, and my spellchecker loathes the word but what the heck...let's invent a whole new language to deliver the info to the peeps! Or, should that be sheeps? Whatever, I'm surfing for something juicer, already.

[sirgorpster]

I have not bought a newspaper in years. I used to get one when my dad came to visit.
I read them on airplanes on occasion. Never as a 1st choice. The last time I grabbed one someone else discarded while leaving to change planes. Some restaurants have them and I might grab a section.

I read non stop. I go to the library twice a week to get books and get magazines. I might read my local small town paper in October. My wife buys books still. I only get them to give away.

Information must be free - that is the way it is in star-trek. You never saw a newspaper in Star trek but they could "replicate" a book for reading in a comfy chair.

[jackwaddington]

When I first came to the United States I was astounded at the amount of paper, ink and distribution involved with newspapers. Time has come to at least save on paper, ink and distribution costs. While for this generation reading hard copy seems preferable the next generation will be very comfortable reading from screens specially if navigating through screens is made more intuitive and easy. What seems to be the outcry is how we pay for it. How about about making news free? We could set up an independent body (independent of politics and religion (a la the BBC) whereby Journalist roam free, report what they find interesting and an internet publisher uploads it. Yeah yeah the government pays for it and it becomes another thing the government does like policing, prisons and the military that I suggest give absolutely no bang for the buck. News would ... sort of.

[danielet]

Investment in news media should be tax deductible and the media should be non-profit on all outlets. That way, all views get their sugar daddies so they can keep inestigative reporting and MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE going. Without it we will cease to be a democracy and will turn into a totalitarian propaganda machine like China where the bloggers are chopped meat. Without an open press-- opinionated or objective-- we remain dumb and follow corporate owned TV news and the GOV. Obama's electronic public information can turn to oppressive and deceptive propaganda if there are not resources for investigative reporting and cintending views commenting on the "objective" press.

[akcrin]

The loss of newspapers would be devastating for people who aren't hooked in to the internet. They may, literally, be a dying breed, but this is like saying Kindle will soon be replacing books altogether. I'd be chopping off heads if my book ran out of juice. Just a warning.

[bebopman21]

When someone figures out how to make enough money on the Web for writers and editors to be able to pay their mortgages and send their kids to college, then newspapers will move everything over to the Internet. I'm not worried about the format as much as the content. Few websites do what a good newspaper can do and those that do usually are subsidized in some way. They don't pay for themselves. And website news staffs will be only as big and do as much as the profits allow. Figure out the money angle (including having "owners" who are not so concerned about satisfying stockholders), and the problems are solved.

[StuCop]

i think we are devolving...

giving up journalism for bloggers...ie biased, unchecked, yelling and name calling...

giving up albums for the cd for the mp3...diminishing sound quality at every step...

giving up the theatre to download movies to watch on computer monitors...or ipods...with poor quality and herky jerky loading even if you're on broadband...

the advance of communication technology has led to less quality and less "actual" communication...

pretty soon the news will be a guy from a blog who heard from another guy from a blog that this one guy said something...

[CPinneo]

You're right, if newspapers went away, we would be losing the ability to read a newspaper in just about any body position: reclining, reading in bed, or hanging on a strap in a subway. For comfort and for the feel of the paper in your hands nothing beats it. Also it is great to be able to scan headlines or the whole paper quickly.

[StuCop]

i'm not talking about newspapers on newsprint...i really don't care if newsprint goes away...but if the newspapers themselves fail, the organizations that the are then that would be a blow.

look at aggregators like huffpo...most of their articles are from newpapers...what would they link to if the newspapers were gone? an unaccredited blog...those generally provided bias and spin and sensationalism. sort of like huffpo...that is until you click thru to the newpaper article that huffpo's headline and short copy is biasedly spinning and sensationally yelling about in ALL CAPS!

so if the newpapers were gone...all we'd get would be the spin and CAPS! red font color optional.

[fleaba]

You forgot...giving up great illustration to clip art....

[AnthonyVolpe]

I can get the news from my PHONE.

Let the newspapers die. Maybe their sacrifice will save a couple hundred trees.

[PaxMundis]

"I can get the news from my PHONE."

Not really. Because your phone didn't do the actual reporting. that was done by real people, mostly employed by traditional media.

Not to mention the fact that everybody having a cell phone (not to mention a new cell phone every couple years) is horrible for the environment.

[SpinMachine]

21st Century America people, get used to it!

When you can get all the day's news in the palm of your hand, its only a matter of time before established content providers either adapt or fail.

[PaxMundis]

Well, if they fail, where will your phone get the content? It's not rocket science to realize that newspapers' existence feeds your digital revolution.

[apoliticalvoice]

well said, sir.

[GaNavy]

How ironic that this piece should appear in HuffPo on the same day as Ben Sherwood's "Hogwash Alert," on the swine flu scams being perpetrated via the Web.

If you think these scams are bad, wait till there aren't any newspapers. Where will the filters be that separate truth from hogwash? How will anyone get out necessary, uniform messages to the public on topics like, oh say, public health? And the idea suggested in one post that the internet is more "accessible" than newspapers is demonstrably untrue: cost of a paper, less than a buck; cost of a computer, still several hundred bucks and what you wind up with is not as useful a reader tool as a newspaper.

Newspapers have at least three other advantages: their ubiquity (they're still universally available); their finality - they aren't wikis that can be changed on a whim; once in print, that's that, they're in final form; and their convenience - reading long copy on a computer screen is one of the most excruciating ways to get information that I can think of.

Or will we henceforth be getting all of our information 140 characters (or less) at a time?

I heard Mr. Jarvis's excellent presentation last week at a Web manager's conference. By the end of it, I couldn't decide who to quote first: Shakespeare (O brave new world, That hath such creatures in't!") or Joni Mitchell ("Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's

[fleaba]

you forgot to add the internet connection charges....

[demockracy]

You've put your finger on the real problem: Who is the gatekeeper, that final arbiter of truth, if the the collected editorial staffs newspapers no longer have gainful employment? Where's Ben Bradley when the next Nixon burgles the Watergate by proxy?

The trouble I have with this assertion is that U.S. newspapers have done such a terrible job reporting the truth, and have been so much in the hip pocket of the oligarchs that... well, I'm not sure we'd notice the difference. On the other hand, I do miss Ben Bradley and I.F. Stone.

Consider just one media commonplace: Media has a liberal bias. For that to be even approximately true there would have to be a Labor section in the newspapers, not just a Business section.

Gore Vidal says U.S.A. stands for the "United States of Amnesia." I'll buy that, no matter how it's delivered.

[vant]

Pass a law that all newspapers must be locally owned. That would be a start in reviving the industry. Corporate ownership, particularly with Gannett, has helped kill it. You wind up with editors from other cities who have no clue what the local readership wants. Worse than that, they are editors who got ahead by sucking up to their superiors and playing the corporate game, rather than real journalists. Believe me, I witnessed it first-hand.