Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
You mean, once the transition to digital completes? In the US, that's an open question. My guess is that an outstanding news organization, in the sense of the watergate era WaPo, cannot be profitable unless all the world's serious news web sites put up a strong pay wall. That won't happen. So papers will continue to hemorrhage print readers and ad revenue, with digital not making it up.
The New York Times, IMHO the outstanding US news organization, did make money in 2012, but only after repeated rounds of layoffs. And print circulation continues to slide. And digital circulation is nowhere near as valuable as print circulation was. For example, I now pay US.1.99 a month for the ad-free Kindle New York Times Latest News Blog. Before the web, I was a home delivery subscriber paying maybe ten or fifteen times more, not even taking inflation into account -- even though the paper was mostly financed by ads. Someone could say that they should raise the price of that blog, which is indeed a bargain. But with so many free alternatives such as Calibre news, if the Times does raise the price much, I'll walk.
As for the Washington Post, their layoffs, while insufficient to restore profitability, mean the WaPo is not the outstanding paper it once was. They dropped their book review section in, I believe, 2009 and investigative journalism has been greatly cut.
As do hundreds of thousands of others. But what does Bezos know about the news business? And what evidence is there that he wants to spend much time on it? Even if there are a few magic ideas which would restore the paper's greatness while returning profitability, which I doubt, you don't do a successful corporate turnaround working an hour or two a week.
If I believe the Wall Street Journal, your entire island has been thrown into turmoil. Maybe the Wall Street Journal will remain profitable. And maybe the Wall Street Journal article I linked is a good one despite the possible hyperbole. But if the Wall Street Journal is the best that's possible in the digital age, I do consider that unfortunate. |
I mostly agree here.
I would say to HansTWN, the horses (readers/subscribers) have bolted the barn, and indeed jumped the corral and are "free roaming." Out West they now call these "feral" or "wild" horses and since the West is very dry right now (wow this is a great analog) the horse are causing problems by denuding the hillsides of foliage causing erosion and runoff when it does rain. Even the Navajos want to round them up for the slaughter houses but this idea offends the "true believers" and so will never be done. We can't even agree about what to do with Spec Manning, or NSA Snowden.
It is an impasse. There is not enough discipline in the the public or government sphere to control the situation.
The big newspapers will slowly die and change to be essentially gossip tabloids. Some specialist papers/magazines like Politico, the WSJ, and of course the Finance mags will survive also.
The only answer I see is a government (like PBS) newspaper organization and that would be anathema to the US populace. (((NO BBC HERE ON THIS WATCH!)))