Mixed feelings about the Detroit experiment
I was dismayed when I first read about the Detroit newspapers’ plans to halt home delivery four days a week.
What kind of a strategy is that? Why would they cut off their most loyal customers - the people who are willing to pay for the paper seven days a week? It doesn’t make sense.
Now, nearly a month later and after some time to think, I can see the wisdom in the move, although I feel sorry for the people of Detroit who are, in effect, the guinea pigs.
As a newspaper editor and/or publisher for most of the last 30 years, I’ve been involved in the ongoing debate over how to save newspapers in the age of the Internet. I’m on the side that thinks it’s possible - perhaps critical to our democratic society - but only with dramatic changes that the newspaper industry has been slow to embrace.
So, here’s what I think is happening in Detroit. I worked for the Gannett Co., which owns the Detroit Free Press, for 25 years. I was a publisher for five of those, attending some of the meetings of the corporate execs who make the big bucks to make the big decisions.
If they are anything, Gannett executives are smart and tough. And they’re willing to do whatever it takes to survive and thrive in the evolving world of Internet dominated media.
They’ve wisely invested in many Web-based initiatives, trying to put their company in a position to succeed.
But part of the problem is that nobody knows what the solution will be. The newspapers industry has boomed for nearly a century using a business model based on subscriptions driving retail and classified revenue. That model is falling apart and no new model has emerged to replace it.
As the revenue slide has escalated, especially in big cities like Detroit, Gannett is getting desperate. Desperate times call for desperate measures
The Christian Science Monitor announced last fall that beginning in April it will drop its daily newspaper and switch to a 24/7 news Web site and a weekly printed news magazine.
It’s a grand experiment that will either propel the Monitor into the new age, or kill it.
Most major daily newspapers aren’t ready yet to take that chance. But Gannett owns 85 daily newspapers, including Port Huron, Battle Creek, Lansing and the Observer & Eccentric and Daily Press and Argus papers in the northwest Detroit suburbs.
It can afford to pick one newspaper and risk its future with an experiment that probably won’t work … but then, nothing else seems to be working, so what the heck.
And if you’re going to pick one city for such an experiment, Detroit seems to be a likely candidate. Its economy is in the worst shape, its prospects for emerging from the recession are among the worst in the nation, and its football team just lost 16 games.
I think turning your back on your customer base is a mistake. I think the Detroit News (owned by MediaNews Group in a joint operating agreement with Gannett’s Free Press) will fail within a year, and the Free Press will have a slight resurgence when it’s the only game in town. I think Gannett will throw out this experiment and return to seven-day home delivery within two years.
But, of course, I don’t really know any more than anyone else about how the future of newspapers will play out - in Detroit or anywhere else. Predictions are cheap. I don’t know who will win the Super Bowl, either.
The Detroit newspapers may have found just the right model for the future, cutting costs (newsprint is expensive and so is paying someone to deliver the paper) so you can save your franchise.
What I do believe with certainty, however, is that people still have an appetite for news. Some want it delivered to their door step, some want to sit on their sofa at 6 p.m., and some want it 24/7 on the Internet.
Smart news organizations will find a way to give it to them any way they want it.
And if they do it well, the financial model(s) will emerge.
January 14th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Hi Dan ~
I am curiously watching how The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News decision regarding their print vs internet presence plays out in the short and long term.
I hope the result of this decision allows for both papers to exist and flourish.
Interestingly, on simple aesthetics, I prefer the Detroit News’ online version of the paper over The Detroit Free Press’ offering.
I am curious as to how students interested in newspaper/journalism are preparing themselves for the change of this industry.
If I was a younger person looking to get into this field, I believe that while it is a challenging time it is also and exciting time with heretofore unimagined opportunity.
January 14th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Kaz:
You’re right, this is both a scary and an exciting time to launch a career in journalism.
I tell students they need to learn all the same skills as journalists of the past (and present) - how to gather information, sort it out and make sense of it, and write clearly and accurately. They need to be fair and balanced, while also telling compelling stories.
But in addition they need to be adding as many of the new media skills as they can, from shooting video to blogging. News organizations will be looking for people with all the old skills and the new ones, too.
As for whether there will be jobs - time will tell, but I think the need and demand for good journalists will be there, as soon as we figure out the right financial model. The world is a complicated place and we need journalists who can help people sort it all out.