The Disappearing Newspaper Blues, or Why I Love Those Inky Fingers - On The Record| David Scribner's column from the Berkshire Record

The Disappearing Newspaper Blues, or Why I Love Those Inky Fingers

By David Scribner

To the delight of newshounds and newspaper junkies everywhere - an endangered species -- The New York Times published last month a collection of its front pages from 1851 through 2008, 300 in all in a handsome volume.

"New York Times: The Complete Front Pages" is indeed complete. The book also comes with three DVD's containing all 54,267 front pages, with Web links to stories on those pages from The Times' vast archive.

Reproduced in the book are the front pages from editions reporting the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, the attack on Pearl Harbor, Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic and, of course, 9-11. With the DVD's you can even find out what The Times had on its front page on the day you were born.

Impressive. But maybe not for long.

There may not be any front pages to collect.

The news about newspapers is grim, to say the least. Tribune Company, owner of the Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field - among other holdings - has declared itself bankrupt. The Miami Herald and the San Diego Union-Tribune are on the block. Journalism pundits, like James Surowiecki in The New Yorker, are warning that it won't be long before major U.S. cities will be without a daily newspaper.

According to the New York Times this week, MediaNews Group, owner of The Berkshire Eagle, Denver Post, Salt Lake Tribune, San Jose Mercury News - among other holdings - is not far behind the Tribune Company in the bankruptcy sweepstakes.

And consider this: The Detroit News Partnership, publisher of the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News, and jointly owned by MediaNews and Gannett, announced this week the reduction of home delivery to three days a week. Slimmed down, one-section newspapers will be available only on newsstands the other four days. To make up the difference, MediaNews and Gannett boast they'll upgrade their Web services. Am I missing something, or is this like offering SPAM instead of steak, on the grounds it's healthier for cows?

Many analysts cite a perfect storm of factors to explain the crisis facing the newspaper industry: readers, especially younger readers -- if this is not already an oxymoron -- prefer the ease and immediacy of getting information 24/7 from Web sites rather than from the more leisurely cycle of once-a-day newspapers. As readers slip away into the virtual reality market, so do advertisers, especially classified advertisers.

And now there's the real estate bust and the Big Recession. In the last quarter, newspaper advertising declined about $2 billion over the same period last year, and online advertising, expected to save the day, shrank as well.

These challenges, however formidable, mask the real problem: newspaper owners and publishers have lost their nerve. They've lost confidence in the viability of their product, and in their panic are creating the conditions of their demise. The same situation prevails, I should add, with book publishers as well.

These executives have lost sight of the fact that ink on a broadsheet page is a brilliant invention, far more effective at conveying the durable cluster of information that we need to understand the complexity of reality than a computer screen will ever be. Can you believe how breathtakingly misguided, not to mention demoralizing for its staff, it is for our local daily paper to disparage its print edition by advertising its Web format as "no inky fingers"?

They've lost sight of the fact that newspapers have assembled an invaluable and irreplaceable resource in its news gathering staff. And what do newspaper gurus do with that news and information content so laboriously collected, on every street corner and sidewalk, at every fire and police station, at every City Council and Board of Selectmen and School Board meeting, at every bloody event that people want and should know about? They give it away free to the very media platform they fear. They create a Web site that mimics the stories in the print edition. Then they wonder why circulation of their real paper declines, and why advertising revenue vanishes into thin air. They are squandering that special, tangible relationship newspapers have with their readers and their community.

Newspapers have faced competition from other media before. But they didn't offer radio networks the stories they were developing for their editions; they didn't provide TV news teams with copy that was going onto the front page.

No indeed. You had to read the newspaper to get stories that no one else could get, and they were better and more comprehensive, written by reporters with real curiosity and familiarity with the issues and people and neighborhoods they were covering. And that competition between broadcast and print made for some mighty fine news gathering that benefitted the public.

My advice to the newspaper industry - what's left of it - is to remember this: Content rules. Don't give it away, don't devalue it.

Be proud of those inky fingers.

This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Record.

12/21/2011
I agree with whatyou have said here. However,you have not gone far enough. Newspapers have lost sight of what their customers, their end users so to speak, want. They no longer answer the "who, what, where, when why and how" questions thoroughly. They do not edit their content so that teachers and others who care about language are able to point with pride to the "paper." Simple things that people use the paper for, such as local movie listings, are now grouped by owners. I personally do not care who owns the theatre, but rather what is showing within five miles of my home. So I go on the internet and take 15 minutes to get logged in and search for theatres near me. Frustrating! I would rather put the paper on the table and coffee in hand read through it.

As a youngster I helped my brother deliver papers to customers and we put them where the customer wanted them, second floor rear, fronthall, doorstep, side door access. Now, especially in the suburbs, they drop the paper at the end of the driveway. Well, if I have to get dressed to go out and get the paper, I could get it cheaper at the store, if I can fit in the timeto stop once I am on the go. I like my paper with the morning coffee. Slowly taking in the day and the news and the coffee at the same time, then getting dressed to fight the daily battle.

Perhaps if the newspaper industry talked to the younger readers and the older ones aboutjust what (besided accuracy and courage and truth) they wanted in their reporting, perhaps then the newspaper industry would be better off.
I surely hopethatthe industry takes the time to think about the future, instead of just throwing up their woe-is-me hands.
Evie Dunne Barber

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