The Future of the News Business
by Danny Riewe
Thursday, March 18, 2010
What do you think of the plight of the newspaper industry? Advertisement and subscription revenues are down; the readership has moved from the traditional format to the free, digital one; and online ads haven't generated enough money to make newspaper websites profitable. Internet users spent less than two minutes a day on news sites in 2009, but close to six hours a month on Facebook. (See my recent editorial here).
Legendary newspapers have shut down, including the Rocky Mountain News. Others have completely abandoned the paper format. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is now SeattlePi.com. The Christian Science Monitor is no longer on the newsstand, but completely on the Web. US News and World Report publishes one paper copy a month; the rest is digital. The Salt Lake Tribune's parent company filed for bankruptcy protection last month, and media giant Gannett has laid off hundreds of reporters. The New York Times announced it would start charging for online content in 2011, but not in the same way as the Wall Street Journal.
This is a historic transition, with pioneer-like business try-outs, much like when newspapers were haphazardly started in the Old West. Did you know that Utah territory at one time had a newspaper death rate of 90 percent? Six newspapers were started and shut down in American Fork alone before the Citizen, founded in 1903, became American Fork's main source of information for over a century.
What kind of model will eventually work for the news business? Will it be something new, like the iPad?
Henry Ford once said, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
What are your thoughts?
