Whither the paper news?

About a dozen years ago when my wife and I moved to the Silicon Valley, one of the first things we did was get a subscription to the daily newspaper. That way we were sure to get some in depth news coverage before heading to work. Our reasoning was that talk radio was too shallow what with its 60 minute news cycle. We also weren’t much into TV, and the network news schedule never seemed to work with our lifestyle, so the newspaper was our primary source of information. But a lot has changed in a decade. Craig’s list and EBay have cut off newspaper advertising at the knees and on-line advertising and web shopping has also taken its share from the local paper. A few years ago the McClatchy group sold our local paper, and since then the ranks of staff reporters has fallen as much as the pages in our daily paper; so much so that the Monday edition seems lighter than the weekly advertising supplement. So is it only a matter of time before print news, as we know it, disappears altogether?

I’ve already alluded to some of the financial causes affecting most US print newspapers; advertising revenue is moving from print media to internet based classified and e-tailing venues. But advertisers go where people are watching (or at least the people whose interest they want to get), so what is available on-line that’s not in print? Quite a lot it seems. The fact that print and electronic media have presences on-line already puts print at a disadvantage. Folks can surf the web and access multiple news resources. You can’t do that with a paper. News sites can also track viewers actions on-line, so they can better tailor, if not customize, content and advertising for the viewer. Strike two for print. Living in real time, the internet can deliver news as its happening from professional and amateur sources. The juxtaposition of sources brings the user much closer to what’s happening than print news can ever hope to. Finally, if you factor in the multitude of tools that gain you access to the internet (iPod, phone and PC) you can’t but help wonder if print news has a snowball’s chance of survival.

While print news in a traditional context is all but guaranteed obsolete, some elements of the brick and mortar newspaper will continue to exist. Differentiating editorial style will remain an important feature to the merged on-line/print newspaper. Merging news from disparate news sources is tedious for even the most technical people so its likely users will look for a news source that fulfills their specific interests. Their first step will be to look at the e-presence of their local paper because it’s more likely have content that fulfills their preferences. What’s unclear is if internet news consolidation will occur because of the varied tastes of internet users, but it is clear that e-news portals will have stiffer competition on the web and they’ll have to distinguish themselves to appeal to readers or prepare to be absorbed or made irrelevant by another web site. Then again, print news may still have an ace up their sleeve since they’re so low tech: its inherently easy to browse, you never have to worry about the paper’s batteries running low, signal strength isn’t an issue, and it’s so cheap you don’t have to worry about leaving it somewhere :^).