aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Monday, October 31, 2005

Newspapers are not dying

But they must change:

“A newspaper’s core product isn’t news or information. It’s community influence,” said Philip Meyer, a professor at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and author of The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Information Age. “That’s created with high-quality editorial product ... (In cutting staffers), newspapers aren’t just eating their seed corn, they’re burning down the barn.”

Some experts have suggested newspapers develop story ideas thinking of the Internet first, with expansive, multilayered content online that is truncated for the print paper. Meyer expects newspapers eventually will publish less frequently, with breaking news handled by well-read Web sites.

“The newspaper business needs a lot of crazy ideas,” he added, citing the success of USA Today, which journalists once derided as “McPaper” for its short stories and colorful layout.

Ink on dead trees just doesn’t cut it:

Ball State University professor Bob Papper, who has co-authored a study analyzing 5,000 hours of media use among 400 subjects, said his numbers show newspapers should work harder to develop online environments.

In his survey, just 27 percent of those ages 25 to 34 looked at a newspaper daily, compared to 71 percent ages 65 and up. Those same 25- to 34-year-olds spent an average 3.6 minutes with a newspaper each day; from age 35 to 44, the figure jumped to 8.2 minutes, with both groups spending more than 10 times that duration online.

“(Newspapers) must stop defining (their) business as ink on dead trees,” Papper said. “You need to define your business as providing information to people. Ink on dead trees is just one way of delivering that information to people.”

Via Romenesko.