The future of newspapers: Are you on a sinking ship?
When did you realize you were on a sinking ship?
Looking back, I think it was around 2002. I was a news page designer at The Times of Northwest Indiana and the paper’s higher-ups announced that the folks who came by each week to water and care for the plants would not be coming back. The paper has a large, sun-filled atrium — it used to be full of plants. Many of them ended up going home with employees, and were replaced by silk versions. (Those fake green plants did come in handy for a project a few years later, though.)
But at the time I remember thinking, “We can’t afford to water the plants?”
Since then, of course, I’ve learned that there are a lot of things we can’t afford. (And sometimes I’m surprised by the things that company leaders, somehow, convince themselves they can afford.)
Now newspapers are laying off employees by the dozens — even the hundreds. Journalists at the San Jose Mercury News — which has already taken a couple of big hits from buyouts and layoffs — were callously told today that nine more of them would be laid off. They were given 24 hours to volunteer, or watch as nine of their co-workers were escorted from the building Friday.
The current rate of inflation is 4.18 percent; I know better than to expect a 4 percent raise this year. But the Boston Globe has proposed a 10 percent pay cut to its employees.
There comes a point when you must decide to jump or stay on the ship. Would you volunteer volunteer for a buyout? What about a layoff? Or a 10 percent cut in salary? Take an “extra” unpaid day off each month?
When did you realize you were on a sinking ship? When did you grab a life jacket? When do you jump?
The Pendleton, pictured above, sank in 1952.
- Posted by Erica Smith at 11:30 pm / Permalink for this post
- Filed under: , future, layoffs/buyouts, newspapers
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I knew the ship was sinking when copy editors became designers. Once more attention was paid to hairlines than to headlines, the jig was up.
Designers have ruined newspapers. The sooner they’re fired and replaced with real editors, the sooner newspapers could right the ship — if that’s even possible at this point.
Designers didn’t ruin newspapers anymore than advertisers, online producers or people who think their overwritten 50-inch opus on TIF districts, without art of course, did.
What’s ruining newspapers is the idea that we could never be replaced. What’s ruining newspapers is the inability to adapt and change to an industry in flux.
The second the Internet was seen as the new information source, newspapers should have jumped on it, invested in the technology and owned that revenue resource. We didn’t. We used it as an archive for the all-mighty print edition. Now the print edition isn’t almighty anymore.
The reality is, none of the main media providers, radio, television, newspaper, know what to give the information consumer because each consumer is different.
In my opinion, just gutting staffs to save money isn’t going to work. If someone can find an example where that’s actually helping, please post it. I’m sure Erica would be interested to see as well.
The fewer resources we have to provide information consumers with information, the more likely they’ll go somewhere else to get it. Eventually you lose more revenue, more staff and then you’ve got nothing but an empty building.
I hope someone out there will find the rosetta stone of media business models and distribute it to all of us. Because I’m getting close to getting on that life boat myself.
It was 1996 – the day I told my editor at The Palm Beach Post that I was taking a position at an Internet start-up called SportsLine USA, Inc. (now CBS SportsLine) to do photo editing, graphics and custom site design. He quite literally laughed at me, then put his hand on my shoulder and told me that I could always come back to my old job “when the ‘Internet fad’ wears off”.
That attitude persisted among nearly every print editor I know until about two years ago — which was, as we all know now, too late.
I agree wtih Matthew Mace — the newspaper industry’s ship is sinking in large part because the industry has been too slow to accept, adapt and change.
If copy editors spent less time whining about page designers and spent more time being clever with the actual copy they are slotted . . . well maybe the fairly generic work and common skills wouldn’t be so easily outsourced to India.
Let’s assume for five seconds that design and designers “ruined newspapers.” We’ve rounded up all of the newspaper designers — and a few from other media just for good measure — and dumped them in a hole in the middle of Kansas so deep and dark that they’ll never be able to draw a map to get out. Would the number of readers skyrocket? Would advertisers beat down the door of the local paper(s) to hand over bags of cash? Would layoffs stop?
No, no and, sadly, no.
So instead of blaming designers or the Internet or evil trolls for the past, which we can’t change, what are we going to do about the future? Because that we can change, but it’s going to take all of us working together to find solutions.
What I’m curious about is why are we dumping the designers in Kansas? :) Did I do something wrong?
Because Kansas is a far-off and exotic land! Unless I’m remembering it incorrectly?
A while back, some scientists did a study and figured out somehow that Kansas is actually flatter than a pancake.
I’m just sayin’.
WAKE UP! I haven’t really boarded the ship yet, but I’m watching it go under from the dock and the reason is more evident and tangible than the solution.
You’re all scared.
Scared of the NEW generation! Oh my God… Internet? What DO we DO? Calm down. Don’t get your undies in a bind. It’s quite simple: Editors and publishers need to stop some horrible trends going around. Here’s a list of a few.
1. STOP putting an emphasis on what the younger demographics want to read for news, and START giving them news. Put your popculture, pseudo-entertainment tabloid bull where it belongs, on the arts and entertainment sections. We have good news judgment and if globalization has done anything, it’s made us care about the world.
2. DON’T STOP putting credibility as number one on your list of things to do today.
3. STOP trying to be that old guy that says “cool” and “yo.” You know what I mean *ehem Tribune*.
4. And for GOD’S SAKE don’t sacrifice good reporters, editors and the people in your newsroom that aren’t afraid to say NO, for bottom line. If you don’t think your readership suffers on account of that, hang up your press badge and get a new lifestyle.
On behalf of future, idealistic, morally strong journalists PLEASE, keep the ship afloat. It’s one of those things that should NEVER disappear.
It’s what d[ream]ocracies are made of.
There is time to turn it around, but the reality is probably somewhere in between. We need to continue to press ahead with solid journalism (as Student Journalist says), but we also need to figure out how to market our commodity outside of print. There’s no magic wand (nor hole in Kansas) that will make this happen.
We need to embrace new technologies and new ways of talking with the community. And we need to be the premier source for local news, regardless of the medium.
Right now, the biggest problem isn’t having readership. Most readerships are UP compared to 10 years ago (when you count web + print). The problem is how to capitalize on that. I have faith in our friends in advertising that they’ll figure it out, though I realize there are many obstacles.
One bright side to suffering is that we’ll likely innovate like we never have before. I’ve seen some REALLY dramatic changes in the past 8 years, but especially in the past two. That’s a good sign.
Will we end up with the same staff numbers we had in 1998? Probably not. But we can be a robust industry again.
“what are we going to do about the future? Because that we can change, but it’s going to take all of us working together to find solutions.”
Your first solution: Either ditch the false, easily detectable clone posts, or find a way to make them smarter.
“spent more time being clever with the actual copy they are slotted” — um, huh? There’s a true design dolt phrase. Just how should they “be more clever”? Change random quotes? Alter a few details? This suggestion sounds very much like someone who never reads past the first graf. And that sounds like a designer; their true longing is to spend less time on content. They don’t understand it, and they fear it.
Also, if we’re referring to outsourcing, I think design work is headed overseas, too.
Let me know when the clones grow some brain cells.
A reporter at The Times, Joe Carlson, made it a point to tell me the ever changing new media landscape isn’t the only obstacle newspapers have to face, it’s also the economy. Fuel prices have, and Wenalway, please make sure to check my usage here, affected our industry as well. From the cost of transportation of paper and ink to the carriers who deliver our newspapers. Advertisers are pulling back, especially real estate and car dealerships. Even if we find a business model that takes into account online, print, television, radio, etc., we still have to deal with the ever fluctuating economy, the same as everyone else.
The ad problem has been around for a while, though. If people are just now grasping that, then that’s a whole other problem.
Just go back to some papers from the late 1980s and early 1990s. You’ll see types of ads that you don’t see today. Those aren’t coming back.
And I’m glad to be here to call a clone stupid, although I think the true words were “easily detectable.”