No News Is Bad News
A few months ago, I somewhat confidently predicted that newspapers would survive the current pressure on their business. I still believe that to be true. But recent news about the news is not so good.
Today the publisher of the Miami Herald, among other papers, declared that it would cut 1,600 jobs. I'm interested in this phenomenon of companies announcing their various intentions to decruit vast numbers of people. During the French Revolution, did Robespierre put out a bulletin, "12,000 to be decapitated!" I don't think so. Of course, it would have been in French and therefore incomprehensible to me, which is not unlike most corporate announcements, come to think of it.
But why do they do it? To be honest? I don't think that's it, forgive me. I think it's because somebody in the Wall Street relations end of their business thinks that's what his audience wants to hear, and that it just might bump the stock for a couple of hours. It certainly doesn't help anybody in-house. In this case, McClatchy, which owns the papers being affected in this cutback, certainly isn't going to axe 1,600 in one day. This leaves a poisonous aura hanging around the entire company until the final head rolls. Who benefits from that? Frankly, I think it stinks from any vantage point. It's Management making itself look responsible and pro-active on the backs of suffering employees. Stop it.
As for newspapers, it's hard to find anything positive to say right now. The Rocky Mountain News is gone. Seattle may lose its paper. Others are dragging themselves along like paralyzed dachshunds on rolling trolleys. Even the newspaper of record, The New York Times, is grasping about trying to figure out how to succeed. Like everybody else in business, their stock is taking a beating, but that's not the real story. The stock price never is these days. It's all about revenue, and that's the rock that's lodged in their hard place.
So to transform themselves into a leaner, 21st century beast, the Times made its employees an interesting offer -- to retrain seasoned reporters to work on the Web. Let's forget about the fact that the Web is even less profitable than its brick and mortar counterparts for a moment; it's clearly going to be where people get at least part of their news until G3 cerebro-cortical implants come along.
Apparently, what the newspaper didn't tell its tenured reporters was that those who were retrained would have to leave their seniority and all that came with it behind and be hired as newbie Web trawlers. Enthusiasm for the plan seems to have foundered in the wake of this insight. This entire interesting tale is laid out on former Times reporter Sharon Waxman's The Wrap. Take a look.
Honestly, I don't know what the bottom line will be in the end. I do know that if I have to get all my news from the Internet, I will cry.
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Companies like to announce in advance how many people they're going to fire because it makes their stock price go up. More proof of the disconnect between the market and the real world, where more unemployment means less money available for retail purchases and a struggle just to pay for the basics of life. All they are going is hastening the spiral into another Great Depression. But I'm hoping that all those unemployed desperate people will finally wake up and start the revolution.
A great point Mr. Bing!
You remind us of the main point -- that the Internet has piggybacked so well, for so little, off the great (or formerly great) newspapers. I hate to think of the Internet without those papers.
David Wild
I've been crying for the past year, each time another batch of layoffs is announced and I open my paper only to find another favorite writer missing, another section smaller, filled with copy & paste AP articles, less local news and more & more typos. I'll keep my subscription current, if only in memory of the greatness that was, and in gratitude for the many years of public service they provided to our community. Even now in the midst of their own economic crisis, they offer a wealth of information about non-profit services available in our community-they still provide a lifeline to those in need. I cannot bring myself to ditch them now. Journalism is an Art, and the Arts are a tough business. I work with a visual artist, a professional for half a century, and I've learned that you cannot survive the tough times by pulling back, by stopping what you do. When there is no money coming in you must work harder, you must be better, you must be more. McClatchy is said to be cutting over 30% of it's workforce -those who produce, and is cutting the salary of it's chief executive by 15% . I think they've got it backward.
If they didn't announce it we would scream they are not transparent enough. I think they should declare a worthy news but should the media amplify it? I think that is a worthier question.
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act) is a United States labor law which protects employees, their families, and communities by requiring most employers with 100 or more employees to provide sixty- (60) calendar-day advance notification of plant closings and mass layoffs of employees. It was enacted in 1989. (Wikipedia)
Why are you writing for Fortune if you don't have a clue about labor law?
Newspapers have too high fixed costs. News websites have much less of that.
Its a wonder we have so many newspaper companies around still. I mean how did they survive for this long.
we had betamax, we had cassettes, now we will soon have print newspapers.
Start crying because that is where the business is going. The Reason? Because print is too expensive. It makes more sense to get your news on your Kindle than buying a piece of paper with ink that rubs off on your hands and is too damn hard to fold to read right. The net also provides a more pollution free and environmentally friendly way to go. You are a dinosaur. Catch the wave before it is too late!
Wow. I don't understand how you could possibly think that the newspapers can survive.
In the not so distant future, journalism will be conducted by news services (e.g. AP, Reuters), freelance journalists, and amateurs/bloggers, whose work will be purchased on a pay-per-view basis by a large number of distributors of various types, ranging from fixed-content online newspapers to personalized semantic aggregators.
Newspapers are doomed because consumers want a mix of news items that reflects their particular interests. In this sense, newspapers are a clunky intermediary between journalists and readers. We have a pool of journalism and a pool of readers, and we need to efficiently connect the right content to the right readers.
The newspapers do a horrible at deciding what should be important. This doesn't properly serve the readers who want to know what's really going on or the journalists who want to deliver such reporting. By cutting out the middle man and connecting readers directly to journalists, journalists can write whatever they want and readers can read whatever they want.
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