Vin Crosbie blasted the newspaper industry. He certainly has a pessimistic view of where newspapers are headed. Crosbie brought up a plethora of concerns and explained why some of the traditional excuses for the decline of newspaper circulation are not valid. For the individuals who blame advertising, Crosbie says, “A newspaper with readers will attract advertisers but a newspaper without readers will not. Readers ultimately support and sustain the newspaper business.” The implication is that there are far, far fewer readers of newspapers than there used to be.
Even with population increasing in the
Of course, much of what Crosbie has to say is unfortunately accurate. It’s unfortunate because, even though I have full confidence that there will always be a place for an American journalist, there is a certain respect -- perhaps in the future a certain nostalgia -- to a newspaper hot off the press. Holding the text in your hand. Folding the pages. Getting the ink stained on your fingers. The crisp smell and easy placement. There is a certain comfort level with a newspaper that is not yet there in cyberspace.
One can’t argue with pure statistics. If the McClatchy Company (30 dailies) goes from $74.30 to $3.78 in stock, it seems that trouble is on the rise. If the population goes from 203 million (1970) to 304 million in today’s society – yet the circulation from 62 million to 53 million – then the decline in newspapers are close to catastrophic, and that decline rightfully initiates discussion.
Crosbie bringing his research and opinion to the forefront is a very good thing, but aside for the concrete statistics, I find some of his conclusions and opinions unsupported. He said more than half of the 1,439 daily newspapers in the
He is clairvoyant, sees the future and deems that newspapers like USA Today and The Wall Street Journal will not even be in print by that time frame? Some would argue that Crosbie is correct. But with advertising and the threshold of journalism expertise in newspapers and with newspapers' storied histories (even if one of them was founded in ’82), one might hope newspapers will meet a better end than what Crosbie has proposed. He made too many absolute statements.
When Crosbie brought up microeconomics, he was very insightful regarding WHY. It's unquestionable that decline in circulation has occurred. He helped explain why people choose what they purchase or read, and bringing up supply and demand makes us all realize that when certain commodities are readily available, why would people actively choose to limit themselves or enslave themselves to content when more instantaneous information is out there, even if that information is lower in quality? It is more important to be in the know than to simply know.
What I find disagreeable is the way Crosbie goes about explaining. Sure, there has been cable TV and the World Wide Web; news has gone from “relative Scarcity” to a "certain surplus." But Crosbie ridicules the newspaper industry that has been around for a very, very, very long time, that has helped countless people, that has been there through thick and thin, that has done amazing investigative work to make his world and mine a better place. Though what Crosbie says is sharp, he’s also exhibiting the hindsight bias. So, perhaps what the newspapers are doing will not save them. But who knows? I, for one, am not ready to take away a newspaper’s credibility. People will still always have a need for local information. If a newspaper continues to publish such online and do the best it can with its circulation, then there is still a place in this world for it. I do not have as pessimistic a point of view as does Crosbie.
And, even though numbers have indeed dropped, they’re not at a point to simply fold up the tent and walk away. Sure, the times are changing, but Crosbie really is giving too much blame to those who run newspapers. Like they could have predicted the multimedia boom? They could have controlled common interest and YouTube? What Crosbie has effectively done is point out numbers and why they are what they are. He said completeness is no longer necessary, as a viewer will accept part of a story online, even if it is a one-liner from a blog. But will everybody turn away from newspapers? Is there nothing that can be done? Is the time they are wiped clean off the face of the Earth going to be by the end of the next decade? I’m going to be a hypocrite (just say a conclusion) and simply state that I think the answer, at least by the next decade, is still going to be a resounding NO.
1 comment:
Brian:
Excellent points! I can't claim to possess clairvoyance, but as a former publisher of daily newspapers, I do know that the current economics are clearly unsustainable for most.
However, I disagree with you about hindsight bias. I based what I wrote on the facts and data about the situation. What criticisms I've gotten boil down to 'newspapers have been around for a long time, so they'll continue to be around for a long time." Now that's hindsight bias!
In my graduate school class today I talked about 1908, when most streets were still full of horses and horse carriages and automobiles were a few rich men's todays. There is plenty of historical records about how, when asked if they thought motorized vehicles would replace horses, most people back then said no, pointing out how humanity had depended upon horses for millennia. As we now now, horses were gone from streets a dozen years later.
If my essays seem scathing, it's only because I've seen my beloved newspaper industry blow so many chances at adaptation during the past dozen years. -- Vin Crosbie
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