I recently wrote an e-mail to Seth Godin asking him about his opinion of journalism. I was reading his book, The Dip, which more or less advises all journalists to jump ship:
If you work at a big city newspaper, you can see that there’s no light at the end of that career-choice tunnel. Circulation is dropping, and it’s going to drop ever faster. most papers have little chance of replacing their traditional business with an online alternative.
You can see his response on his blog here, where he introduces a great question that all newspapers should be asking themselves: what are you defending?
If you’re clinging to a paper product, you are facing a dead end. If you’re spending time and resources trying to defend the practice of printing and delivering, instead of discovering new ways to deliver and monetize your content, you are wasting your time.
Especially because what you’re really defending is the printer, not your own business.
If this all sounds interesting to you, don’t forget to subscribe to my RSS feed to follow the conversation.
Eat Sleep Publish is a Seattle-based blog that explores the difficulties and opportunities currently facing the publishing industry. 
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I left the print world for the web world several years ago because I should see a large majority of newspapers didn’t “get it.”
They whore out their web sites with ads instead of turning reading online into a community experience. They would charge to read the paper online, and worst of all, most of them looked like crap.
There are a few exceptions, like ljworld.com, the newspaper where I live. They “get it.” Their community is rapid. Their ads are tasteful. Their services are desirable.
It seems to me that a large majority of publishers are defending their dying (albeit loyal) readership, instead of starting a good dialog with online readers.
Why? I think they’re afraid of the change.
All established businesses are afraid of change. That seems to be the rule.
I think you’re right that a lot of newspapers didn’t, and still don’t, “get it” enough to make a difference. There are a lot of smart people working in newsrooms, but it takes more than a couple savvy reporters to change the business.
As for charging people to read the paper online – I think it’s only halfway a bad idea. I think that basic access to news and opinion – let’s say the most recent 10 years, should absolutely be free online.
I also think that newspapers should find a way to get more of their revenue from their readership going forward. I think that three things are true:
1. That people are not as averse to paying for news and convenience as many think.
2. That CPM and CPC advertising all but destroys the wall between advertising and editorial, and that that is a bad thing.
3. Internet ad revenue will never provide newspapers the monopoly-level margins they enjoyed in the past.
It’s a little too easy to say newspapers “don’t get it.” I think more papers get it than you know. What they’re trying to defend is having a staff of professionals to gather the news. They’re trying to figure out how to not only support that staff in the Brave New World of the Web but how to make money off their work.
Right now, more money still comes from print than online. And no one is going to give up that print cash until it’s totally gone. Newspapers would happily dump the printer if they could afford to. But they can’t … just yet.
If people value news — the kind of news that a professional newsroom can produce — then we’re going to have to find ways to pay for it. What that model is, I don’t know.
@Curt, you’re probably right. I’ve been trying to avoid the phrase “dont’ get it,” because it’s a judgment call I’m in a poor place to make (i.e. not in a newsroom).
In this particular case, what I mean to say is that newspapers should spend their time and resources on experimenting with new methods of delivery, which includes hiring the staff needed to make a killer web site AND keeping on a cadre of quality news reporters.
The “dead-end” that, from the outside, I see some newspapers taking (like The Seattle Times) is spending money on TV ads and booths at events designed to get people to subscribe to the print product. That money could be better spent hiring bright people in the internet department IMHO.
“Especially because what you’re really defending is the printer, not your own business.”
Good call. Yet another vague allusion to the distinction (that you and I always discuss) between media and journalism. I’m all about new media, but that doesn’t mean “citizen journalism” has to kill the newspaper stars.
The Seattle P-I (where I work) and the Seattle Times (our Joint Operating Agreement partner) recently experienced an increase in circulation, something that is almost unheard of these days.
But wait! How did we do it? The E-Edition, the daily PDF reproduction of the printed paper, experienced enough growth to give us positive numbers for the preceding six months. Since people pay for it and it’s an exact copy of the printed paper, it counts as circulation.
It’s not much but it’s something.
There are lots of ideas out there. What is needed are owners who will be willing to spend money (and absorb losses) to develop the new means of delivery, etc. As Butch says in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid:” “I have vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals.”
An expert on these things I heard speak years ago put it another way when he said that, as it has always been, good papers (or web sites) will survive and bad ones will fail.