Who killed the newspaper?
Melissa Brabham
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There are more than 50 Starbucks in New York City, but everyone in Manhattan crowded into the small storefront on the corner of Broadway and Grand Street. The store hummed with voices thick with New York accents, and the aroma of fresh brewed coffee filled the air. Starbucks resembled an office for the modern journalist. People crammed onto tables with their laptops and PDAs, constantly updating their Twitter accounts and emailing nonstop.
Hands toggled between iPods and cellular phones but no one busied themselves with the neat stack of New York Times newspapers sitting undisturbed by the counter. Seated behind a man wearing large Bose headphones attached to his Mac notebook, Serena Netcliff, a recent graduate from City College with a bachelor's in communications, explained why print newspapers would soon become obsolete. "I don't read actual newspapers," she said "It's easier to extract information from the Internet"
The man wearing the headphones was reading the Perez Hilton blog. Was Perez Hilton type of information extraction newspapers were competing with? The closing of The Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post- Intelligencer testifies to the fact that newspapers, as well as the journalism industry, are being threatened by the changing economy. Erica Petru, a reporter from the Sound News in Seattle, wrote about P-I in March 2009 that "Today marks the end of the 146- year-old newspaper." The business model on which newspapers operate is proving to be less effective in a multimedia-driven, hyper-interactive society. Some major newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post manage to adapt by providing more online content replete with a lot of consumer interactivity.
They promote their Twitter accounts and Facebook pages along with breaking news on the main page. According to a 2008 study done by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism on the changing newsroom, major metro newspapers are experiencing larger cutbacks than smaller newspapers. To produce a story for a legacy newspaper like The New York Times takes a lot of time and energy. Just ask The New York Times writer Ian Shapira how many hours and how much money went into writing his article about a generational consultant. It took him two days to write his article, gas traveling to and from Fairfax, N.J., and hours transcribing 3,000 words worth of notes. His story received little reader attention until it was picked up by a Gawker.com blogger. I
n Shapira's response to the literary thievery from the Gawker blogger he wrote "Lately they're making me even more nervous about my precarious career as a newspaper reporter who enjoys, at least for the time being, a salary, a 401(k) and health insurance.". Shapira was right. The trend from trained investigative journalist to the ubiquitous opinionated blogger continues to weaken the journalism industry.
Scaling down the newsroom
"The revenue trends we continue to experience simply do not support or require the same number of people," Robert W. Decherd, the chief executive, wrote in a note to employees, according to an article in The New York Times. The future of journalism may be a smaller newsroom with less staff, but Norman Graham, a senior majoring in journalism at the University at Albany, predicts that the roles journalists play "are still needed because we still need to get the news and know what's going on around us."
In an interview with Matt Baumgartner about his newly launched blog FridayPuppy.com, he admitted that he "almost never buys the newspaper anymore,". Without ever taking a journalism course or intensive writing class during college, Baumgartner has succeeded in what many professionally trained journalist aim to do--write a successful blog that retains readership. It's the inevitable transformation of American society. For the last 200 years newspapers have served as the watchdog of democracy and corruption.
During the 2008 presidential election, people couldn't wait to buy the collector's edition newspaper with Obama's photo on the cover. And it was two investigative journalists who broke the Watergate scandal.
The traditional journalist worried about thoroughly investigating their topics and getting reliable sources; whereas the modern journalist seems more consumed with competition,changing trends and staying relevant. When asked whether the watchdog role of a journalist will survive, Netcliff, the City College grad, said, "Well maybe it's time to put the watchdog down."
There is speculation within the journalism industry that if the investigative hard stories normally produced by newspapers are not exclusive to journalists, than news stories will lack quality. "In previous downturns, rookie reporters reinvigorated the newsroom; now, there might not be any quality, young journalists to take over." Joel Kaplan of the Neiman Foundation wrote in his article titled "Damaging Ripple Effects of Newsroom Cutbacks".
In contrast Michael Huber, the Interactive Audience Manager for the Times Union Web site, teaches an upper-level journalist class because it "keeps me sharp," he said. Huber explained that contrast between himself and his students is "a great opportunity to find out what will happen in the future."
The almighty Internet
Who will continue to spend 50 or 75 cents on a newspaper when the stories are free online? "I read newspapers growing up because…,". "because that's what everyone did,". said York Brabham, a 67-year-old retired veteran. Brabham is a part of a minority of people who continue to buy newspapers. In contrast to Sojourner Edmonson-Sealy, a former student at Clark Atlanta University majoring in fashion merchandising, "I use the Internet religiously," and "I check my Twitter and Facebook at least…five times a day."
While newspapers are struggling to retain readership and revenues and maintain journalistic integrity, the free and ubiquitous Internet poses new challenges that newspapers have never faced. It will cost you next to nothing or nothing at all to create Web sites, write blogs, sell products online, make professional connections, create personal branding and produce online articles.The World Wide Web provides a constant flow of fresh and easily accessible content; something that newspapers, even online, are not yet sure of how to match or beat that concept.
John Dvorak, a writer for the Market Watch Web site argued that from a business perspective newspapers do not have an effective barrier to protect them against the Internet. "There are now plenty of news sites to choose from. I would argue that there are too many newspapers," This period of declining in the newspaper industry is weeding out the weak allowing the stronger well equipped newspapers to survive.Mr. Brabham contested that "It's a matter of time before everything goes online,"
The newspaper industry is a reflection of the recession and the inevitable changes that follow. Papercuts.com will continue to track newspaper closings and jobs will be lost. Only time will tell how many newspapers and jobs will survive.
An hour later, the noises inside Starbuck's have quieted, broken only by an occasional customer laughing loudly. The man wearing the headphones is now on iTunes and the neat stack of The New York Times newspapers looks a messier than it had an hour ago.